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GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

AS  MAN  AND  AUTHOR 

BY 

JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
153-157,  FIFTH  AVENUE 

MDCCCXCV 


CONTENTS 


Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  the  three  founders  of  Modem 
Literature — They  represent  the  three  main  elements  of  Fior- 
entine Society — Boccaccio' s  influence  on  Italian  literature 
greater  than  that  of  Dante  or  Petrarch — Transition  from 
Middle  Age  to  Renaissance — Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  the 
pioneers  of  the  Revival  of  Learning       .      .       .     Pp.  1-12 

II 

Boccaccio's  birth — Doubt  as  to  his  legitimacy — His  father — His 
early  love  for  poetry — His  education — He  abandons  Commerce 
and  Lavi^ — Life  at  Naples — Story  of  his  visit  to  Virgil's  tomb — 
His  acquaintance  with  Fiammetta — Is  received  into  fashionable 
Society — His  relations  with  Fiammetta  discussed — Treatment 
of  his  passion  in  his  literary  work    ....    Pp,  13-28 

III 

Fusion  of  mediaevalìsm  and  classicalism  in  Boccaccio's  first  work, 
"Filocopo" — Its  originality  in  spite  of  its  faults — Junction  of 
humanism  and  vernacular  poetry — Time  spent  on  law  and 
commerce  not  really  wasted — Recali  to  Florence — Troubled 
condition  of  the  city — Disagreement  with  his  father — Painful 
picture  of  the  household  in  the  "  Ameto  " — Composition  of  that 
romance — Its  form  and  nature — Its  influence  on  Renaissance 
fiction — The  "Amorosa  Visione" — Apotheosis  of  naturai 
instinct — Insincerity  of  allegorical  chivalry — The  "Ninfale 
Fiesolano  " — "  La  Teseide  " — The  story  rehandled  by  Chaucer, 
Shakspeare  and  Dryden — "  Filostrato  " — A  versified  novel  of 


CONTENTS 


the  passions — Strength  of  character  drawing  displayed — General 
survey  of  the  merits  and  faults  of  Boccaccio' s  poetical  work — 
Doubt  as  to  authenticity  of  *'  La  Fiammetta  " — Difficulty  of  attri- 
buting  it  to  Boccaccio — An  extraordinary  piece  of  writing — Its 
Wide  and  lasting  influence  Pp.  29-56 

IV 

Return  to  Naples — Friendship  with  Queen  Joanna — The  '  'Decameron'  ' 
composed — Condition  of  Southern  Italy — Boccaccio  returns  to 
Florence — His  father's  death — His  public  missions — Meeting 
with  Petrarch — Their  friendship — Boccaccio 's  encyclopaedic 
Works — He  learns  Greek  and  translates  Homer — "  Il  Corbaccio  " 
— Its  violence — Vision  and  message  of  Pietro  de  Petroni — 
Their  effect  upon  Boccaccio — He  is  comforted  by  Petrarch — Is 
invited  to  Naples  by  Acciaiuoli — His  disappointment — Old  age 
— Appointment  as  lectnrer  on  the  "  Divine  Comedy  " — His 
want  of  sympathy  with  Dante — Death  at  Certaldo  in  1375 

Pp.  57-77 

V 

The  •*  Decameron  " — Boccaccios  likìng  for  Greek  names — Search 
as  to  sources  of  the  "  Decameron  "  only  indirectly  interesting 
— Charge  of  plagiarism  dismissed — Realism  of  the  '  '  Decameron  '  ' 
— Charm  of  its  style — Relation  of  the  "  Decameron  "  to  the 
"  Divine  Comedy  " — Moral  of  the  introduction  of  the  plague 
into  the  "  Decameron  " — The  plague  a  landmark  in  Italian 
history — The  framework  of  the  Decameron — Satire  of  the 
ideals  of  the  age  and  of  the  Church— Conclusion   .   Pp.  78-92 

Note  on  the  Place  and  Manner  of  Boccaccio's  Birth. — Tradi- 
tion  resting  upon  Italian  version  of  Filippo  Villani — The  story 
repeated  by  Domenico  of  Arezzo — Reasons  for  assuming 
Boccaccio's  legitimacy — Inferences  from  the  "  Ameto  " — Result 
of  the  inquiry   Pp.  93-101 


vi 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


AS  MAN  AND  AUTHOR 
I 

HE  literature  of  modem  as 
distinguished  from  medieval 
Europe  began  with  three 
Italian  poets — Dante,  Petrarch, 
and  Boccaccio.  The  common  characteristic 
which  makes  these  men  modem,  and  separates 
them  from  their  mediaeval  predecessors,  is 
that  three  main  types  of  imaginative  writing 
assumed  with  them  the  quality  of  monumentai 
art.  If  we  wish  to  comprehend  the  theology, 
the  poHtical  ideas,  the  allegories,  and  the 
mental  temper  of  the  Middle  Ages,  expressed 
in  a  coherent  work  of  the  imagination,  we  must 
go  to  the    Divine  Comedy."     In  Petrarch's 

I  A 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

''Canzoniere"  the  love-mysticism  and  the 
lyrics  of  Provence  attain  their  ultimate  per- 
fection.  Boccaccio's  "Decameron"  elevates 
the  legends  of  a  hundred  generations,  dimly 
floating  in  the  memories  of  men,  to  the  rank 
of  clear  self-conscious  art,  and  inaugurates  a 
form  of  prose-narrative  which  in  the  novel 
has  superseded  epic  poetry. 

Three  things  make  the  work  of  these  great 
writers  monumentai.  One  is  their  fìrm  grasp 
upon  the  forms  they  severally  used,  whereby 
diffuse  and  vague  materiais  of  various  sorts 
were  wrought  into  imperishable  plastic  shape. 
The  second  is  the  keen  emergence  of  their 
personalities  as  men,  that  penetration  of  the 
art-work  with  the  artist's  self  which  was  con- 
spicuously  absent  in  mediaeval  compositions. 
The  third  is  the  vivacity  of  their  sensations, 
the  awakened  life,  the  resuscitated  realism,  the 
fine  analysis  of  motives,  the  nice  discrimination 
of  physical  and  moral  qualities  ;  ali  of  which 
transports  us  from  a  world  of  dreams  and 
abstractions  into  the  world  of  fact  and  nature. 

2 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Dante  takes  for  his  province  the  drama  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  widest  scope  ;  Petrarch  takes 
the  heart  of  an  individuai  man,  himself  ;  Boc- 
caccio takes  the  complex  stuff  of  daily  Hfe, 
the  quicquid  agunt  homines  of  common  experi- 
ence.  These  are  their  several  subjects.  Out 
of  them  Dante  creates  the  epic,  Petrarch  the 
lyric,  Boccaccio  the  novel. 

As  their  work  was  monumentai  so  was  it 
final.  There  could  not  be  a  second  Divine 
Comedy,"  a  second  "  Canzoniere,"  a  second 

Decameron,"  except  in  imitations  of  greater 
or  lesser  literary  merit.  These  three  poets 
closed  and  consummated  a  lengthy  period  of 
thought  and  emotion.  It  was  impossible  to 
repeat  them,  just  as  it  was  impossible  to 
repeat  Rabelais,  Cervantes,  Shakespeare.  At 
the  same  time  they  opened  a  new  era,  by 
exhibiting  the  freedom  of  the  individuai 
artist's  genius,  which  during  the  Middle  Ages 
had  nowhere  emerged  into  independent  self- 
sufficiency. 

The  three  founders  of  modem  literature 
3 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

were  Florentines  by  origin  ;  and  their  lives 
foUowed  at  brief  intervals,  within  a  narrow 
space  of  time.  Dante  was  born  in  1265, 
Petrarch  in  1304,  Boccaccio  in  1313.  Between 
1321  (the  date  of  Dante's  death)  and  1361 
(the date  of  Boccaccio s  conversion)  the  ''Divine 
Comedy,"  the  ''  Canzoniere,"  and  the  De- 
cameron "  were  secured  as  inalienable  posses- 
sions  for  posterity. 

Dante  belonged  to  the  old  nobihty  of 
Florence,  who  fought  the  battles  of  Guelf 
and  Ghibelline  upon  the  plains  of  Tuscany. 
Petrarch  sprang  from  Fiorentine  parents  of 
the  middle  class,  exiled  in  the  same  quarrels  ; 
growing  up  without  a  home  or  city,  he 
became  a  cosmopolitan  by  culture.  Boccaccio 
derived  his  doubtful  blood  from  a  merchant 
of  no  birth  or  breeding,  one  of  those  men 
whose  immediate  ancestors  were  villeins  from 
the  country  admitted  to  Fiorentine  burgher- 
ship  in  a  moment  of  democratic  expansive- 
ness.  Of  such  people  Dante  spoke  in  his 
scornful    aristocratic   way   as   follo  ws  :  ''In 

4 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

those  olden  days  the  citizenship,  which  now  is 
adulterateci  with  folk  of  Campi,  and  Certaldo, 
and  Figghine,  was  pure  and  unmixed  down 
to  the  least  artisan.  Oh  !  how  much  better 
would  it  have  been  to  have  kept  those  people 
for  our  neighbours,  and  to  have  restricted 
Florence  to  her  ancient  circuit  of  three  miles 
or  four,  than  to  clasp  them  with  us  now  inside 
our  walls,  suffering  the  stench  of  rustics  from 
Aguglion  and  Signa,  whose  eyes  are  grown 
already  sharp  for  dirty  gain  !  " 

Thus  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio  repre- 
sented  the  three  main  elements  of  Fiorentine 
society  in  the  last  years  of  the  Middle  Ages — 
the  popolo  vecchio,  the  popolo  grasso,  and  the 
popolo  minutOy  as  these  were  severally  called. 
It  is  not  trivial  to  notice  that  Boccaccio,  with 
whom  we  are  principally  concerned,  issued 
from  the  class  which  ultimately  rose  to  power 
in  Florence  ;  the  class  which  chose  the  Medici, 
themselves  of  no  high  blood,  for  rulers;  the 
class  which  raised  their  city  to  literary  and 
artistic  splendour  in  the   first  years  of  the 

5 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Renaissance  ;  the  class  which  reduced  that 
city  to  moral  and  politicai  impotence  in  its 
decline.  To  this  class,  then,  the  class  in  the 
ascendant,  Boccaccio  belonged  ;  and,  of  the 
three  founders  of  modem  literature,  he  exer- 
cised  by  far  the  most  potent  and  far-reaching 
influence  over  his  immediate  successors.  Not 
Dante  in  any  department  whatsoever,  not 
Petrarch  in  more  than  a  limited  sphere  of 
lyric  poetry,  but  Boccaccio  dominated  Italian 
taste  for  three  successive  centuries.  I  am 
speaking  of  vernacular  art,  not  of  scholarship  ; 
and  I  hope  to  prove  my  assertion  by  showing 
how  many  literary  types,  of  great  vogue  in 
the  Renaissance,  were  due  to  Boccaccio's 
creative  instinct. 

It  seems  paradoxical  to  say  this.  Every- 
body  can  see  for  himself  that,  of  these  three 
poets,  Dante  was  first,  Petrarch  second,  and 
Boccaccio  third  in  force  of  character  and 
quality  of  genius.  Yet  the  fact  that  Boccaccio 
did  more  than  his  superiors  to  mould  and  in- 
fluence Italian  literature  admits  of  denionstra- 

6 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

tion.  The  cause  is  obvious.  While  ali  three 
held  in  a  great  measure  by  the  past,  Boccaccio 
was  the  one  whose  temperament  and  favourite 
forms  of  art  anticipated  the  future.  He  alone 
grew  with  the  growing  age,  in  his  substitution 
of  sensual  and  concrete  for  mystical  and  ab- 
stract ideals,  in  his  joyous  acceptance  of  nature 
and  the  world,  in  his  frank  abandonment  of 
theological,  scholastic,  and  politicai  preoccu- 
pations.  The  Italians  of  the  Renaissance 
turned  their  back  on  metaphysics,  treated 
allegory  with  cynical  insolence,  neglected  the 
burning  questions  of  Church  and  Empire  as 
unpractical  and  antiquated.  What  then  was 
Dante  for  them  but  a  grim  and  sphinx-like 
symbol  of  the  past,  whose  majesty  inspired  a 
kind  of  irksome  awe  ?  The  Italians  of  the 
Renaissance  disbelieved  in  chivalry  and  Pla- 
tonic  love  ;  they  wanted  to  enjoy  plenty,  and 
to  take  their  fili  of  carnai  pleasure.  What 
then  was  Petrarch  for  them  but  a  perfect 
master  in  the  art  of  writing  compliments,  and 
veiling  crude   desire   in    artificial    forms  of 

7 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

decent  verse  ?  With  Boccaccio  they  felt  them- 
selves  at  home.  He  knew  life  as  they  knew 
it  ;  he  wanted  what  they  wanted  ;  he  painted 
men  and  women  as  they  actually  were,  moving 
about  the  streets  and  fields  of  their  own  native 
land.  His  realism  was  theirs  ;  his  insinceri ty 
was  theirs  ;  his  easy-going  acceptance  of  alle- 
gorica! forms  which  had  lost  their  hold  upon 
his  faith,  but  which  were  useful  as  a  fig-leaf 
for  the  nakedness  of  human  appetites,  suited 
their  temper  and  their  sense  of  decorum  ;  his 
toleration  of  the  powers  that  be,  his  panegyric 
of  a  Semiramis  who  had  patronised  him,  his 
disengagement  from  troublesome  public  affairs, 
his  devotion  to  art  for  art's  sake,  jumped  pre- 
cisely  with  their  humour.  And  then  he  gave 
them  so  much  amusement,  so  many  new  spe- 
cies  of  literature,  agreeable  and  easy  to  deal 
with — the  novel  in  prose  as  sparkling  as  the 
tights  of  Harlequin,  the  romance  in  long-drawn 
octave  stanzas,  the  idyll  in  mixed  verse  and 
prose,  the  obscure  satire,  the  pompous  impas- 
sioned    chaunt    of    palpitating  love.  The 

8 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

reasons,  as  I  take  it,  are  not  far  to  seek  why 
Boccaccio  eclipsed  Dante  and  even  Petrarch 
with  their  immediate  posterity. 

From  Dante  through  Petrarch  to  Boccaccio  ; 
from  Beatrice  through  Laura  to  La  Fiammetta 
— from  woman  as  an  allegory  of  the  noblest 
thoughts  and  purest  stirrings  of  the  soul, 
through  woman  as  the  symbol  of  ali  beauty 
worshipped  at  a  distance,  to  woman  as  man's 
lover  kindling  and  reciprocating  passionate 
desire  ;  from  the  Divine  Comedy,"  through 
the  "  Canzoniere  "  to  the  "  Decameron  " — 
from  the  eternai  world  of  man's  fixed  self- 
created  destiny,  through  the  transitory  world 
of  trembling  introspective  sentiment  to  the 
positive  world  of  fact  and  act  in  which  we 
play  our  parts  ;  from  mystic  terza  rimay  through 
stately  stanzas,  to  Protean  prose — from  verse 
built  up  into  cathedral  dignity  with  mathema- 
tical  precision,  through  lyrics  light  as  ara- 
besques  and  pointed  with  the  steely  touch  of 
polished  style,  to  that  free  form  of  speech 
which  takes  ali  moods  and  lends  itself  alike  to 

9 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

low  and  lofty  themes  :  such  was  the  rapid 
movement  of  Italian  genius  within  the  brief 
space  of  some  fifty  years.  So  quickly  did  the 
Renaissance  emerge  from  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
and  when  the  voices  of  that  august  trio  were 
silenced  in  the  grave,  the  echo  of  the  last  and 
least  of  them  widened  and  grew  louder  through 
the  spacious  times  to  come. 

In  these  observations  upon  Dante,  Petrarch, 
and  Boccaccio,  I  have  hitherto  presented  them 
only  as  Italian  poets  who  inaugurated  modem 
European  literature.  There  is,  however, 
another  point  to  be  considered.  They  came  at 
the  moment  when  our  intellectual  ancestors, 
moulded  by  the  Middle  Ages,  were  destined 
to  repiece  the  broken  chain  which  linked  the 
men  of  modem  times  with  classica!  antiquity. 
Dante  had  nothing  to  do  with  what  is  called 
the  Revival  of  Learning  ;  and  this  is  one  cause 
why  his  sublime  genius  possessed  little  attrac- 
tion  for  men  who  made  that  revival  their 
prime  interest.  But  we  who  now  look  back 
upon  the  Renaissance,  are  able  to  perceive  how 

IO 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

strongly  modem  pulses  throbbed  in  him. 
While  he  dealt  with  the  enduring  problems  of 
mankind  in  the  spirit  of  a  mediaeval  thinker, 
Dante  possessed,  as  an  artist,  what  was  most 
vital  and  precious  in  the  temper  of  the  coming 
age — concrete  imagination,  grasp  on  nature 
through  the  senses,  intuition  into  the  specific 
qualities  of  men  and  things.  The  vagueness, 
the  dreaminess,  the  generaHty  of  mediaevahsm 
disappeared  in  his  work.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever,  apply  himself  to  the  resuscitation  of  the 
classica  as  the  groundwork  of  a  moral  type  of 
culture.  That  task  was  reserved  for  Petrarch, 
the  cosmopolitan,  the  student  freed  by  fate 
from  Dante's  tyrannous  preoccupations.  It  was 
both  the  weakness  and  the  strength  of  Petrarch 
that  circumstances  left  him  open  to  a  merely 
literary  impulse.  It  was  Petrarch's  weakness, 
inasmuch  as  something  was  deducted  from  his 
personality  in  action  ;  it  was  Petrarch's  strength, 
in  so  far  as  he  divined  in  solitude  what  Europe 
needed  for  the  next  inevitable  step  of  evolu- 
tion.    Independently,  therefore,  of  his  poetical 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

achievement,  Petrarch  claims  our  veneration  as 
the  initiator  of  humanism,  of  scholarship,  of  the 
modem  intellectual  ideal.  He  started  that 
movement  to  which  the  occidental  races  owe 
their  common  mental  atmosphere,  their  ac- 
cepted  type  of  education,  their  independence  of 
scholastic  and  theological  authority,  their 
Science,  their  criticism.  Ali  this  we  designate 
by  such  terms  as  the  Revival  of  Learning  or 
the  Renaissance,  unmindful  of  the  weighty 
issues  which  were  involved  in  that  first  rupture 
with  the  mediseval  ways  of  thought.  The 
Zeit-geist  needed  Petrarch.  He,  or  some  one 
like  him,  was  demanded  to  effect  a  necessary 
transition.  In  the  accomplishment  of  that  un- 
/  avoidable   process.  Boccaccio  rendered  more 

than  yeoman's  service.  We  have  to  estimate 
him  not  only  as  the  author  of  the  "  Decameron," 
not  only  as  the  poet  who  controlied  the  course 
of  Italian  literature  in  its  main  currents  for 
three  hundred  years,  but  also  as  the  founder  of 
Greek  studies  and  Petrarch's  ablest  lieutenant 
in  the  pioneering  work  of  the  Revival. 

12 


II 


/GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO  was  born  in 
the  year  13 13.  We  do  not  know  for 
certain  where  he  was  born,  who  his  mother 
was,  and  whether  he  was  born  in  wedlock. 
His  father  belonged  to  a  humble  family, 
originally  seated  at  Certaldo  in  Valdelsa, 
about  eighteen  miles  distant  from  Florence. 
Their  ancestors  had  been  admitted  to  the 
burghership  of  the  Sovereign  State.  Ac- 
cordingly,  Giovanni,  although  he  called  him- 
self  the  son  of  Boccaccio  of  Certaldo,"  and 
though  he  regarded  Certaldo  as  his  native 
place  or  patria,  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  a 
Fiorentine  citizen.  He  was  ne  ver  known  by 
any  family  name  ;  his  full  denomination  being 
Giovanni  di  Boccaccio  di  Chellino  da  Certaldo, 
John  the  son  of  Boccaccio  the  son  of  Chellino 

13 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

of  Certaldo.  Relegating  the  discussion  of 
questions  regarding  his  birthplace  and  legiti- 
macy  to  an  appendix,  this,  I  think,  is  ali  that 
can  be  safely  afìirmed  upon  the  subject  of 
Boccaccio's  origin. 

Of  his  early  life  we  know  unfortunately 
very  little,  and  it  is  impossible  to  determine 
its  chronology  with  precision.  Two  schemes 
have  been  suggested  through  which  the  scanty 
data  furnished  by  allusions  in  his  own  writings 
and  by  the  meagre  information  of  contempo- 
raries,  may  be  reduced  to  order.  These 
depend  respectively  upon  the  views  we  take 
regarding  Boccaccio's  first  meeting  with  Fiam- 
metta. The  one  receives  support  from  the 
Latin,  the  other  from  the  Italian  version  of 
Filippo  Villani's  panegyric.  It  does  not 
greatly  signify  which  scheme  we  adopt  ;  each 
presents  special  difficulties  together  with  cer- 
tain  advantages.  In  the  follo wing  sketch  of 
Boccaccio's  biography  I  shall  adhere  to  the 
one  which  seems  to  me  upon  the  whole  pre- 
ferable,  after  expressing  my  opinion  that  no 

14 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

reliance  can  be  placed  upon  the  accuracy  of 
dates  anterior  to  the  year  1350.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  this  chronological  uncertainty,  the  main 
outlines  of  Boccaccio's  boyhood  and  youth  are 
sufficiently  distinct,  and  the  growth  of  his 
character  may  be  described  with  some  minute- 
ness. 

Giovanni  Boccaccio's  father  was  a  man  of 
very  different  temper  from  the  poet.  Having 
begun  life  as  a  merchant,  he  devoted  his 
whole  energy  and  ali  his  thoughts  to  money- 
making.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  elder 
Boccaccio  was  eminently  successful  in  trade  ; 
and  though  he  held  several  offices  of  trust  in 
the  republic,  his  name  has  left  no  trace  in 
history.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
Giovanni  remained  for  many  years  the  only 
son  of  this  man,  and  the  fact  that  his  mother 
has  not  once  been  mentioned  by  him  leads 
one  to  suppose  that  she  died  during  his 
infancy.  His  father  s  sole  ambition  was  to 
educate  him  as  a  man  of  business,  in  order 
that  the  slender  fortunes  of  the  family,  which 

15 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

he  had  himself  improved,  might  in  the  next 
generation  be  raised  stili  higher.  This  caused 
a  rooted  disagreement  between  the  two  occu- 
pants  of  the  gloomy  little  house  in  S**  Felicità 
at  Florence.  Reviewing  bis  own  life  upon  the 
threshold  of  old  age,  Boccaccio  wrote  as  foUows  : 
"  Nature,  as  experience  has  proved,  drew 
me  from  my  mother's  womb  with  special  apti- 
tudes  for  poetry  ;  and  in  my  opinion  this  was 
the  law  for  which  I  was  created.  Well  enough 
do  I  remember  how  my  father  used  bis  best 
endeavours,  from  my  earliest  boyhood,  to 
make  me  a  man  of  commerce.  Before  I 
entered  on  the  period  of  youth,  but  had  ac- 
quired  some  knowledge  of  arithmetic,  he  put 
me  to  a  merchant  of  great  consequence,  with 
whom  I  did  nothing  for  six  years  but  waste 
irrecoverable  time.  Being  soon  forced  to 
perceive  that  my  bent  was  rather  for  study 
than  for  trade,  he  next  decided  that  I  should 
apply  myself  to  canon  law,  with  a  view  to 
making  money  ;  accordingly  I  laboured  in 
vain,  for  about  the  same  space  of  time,  under 

i6 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

a  very  eminent  professor.  My  mind,  however, 
revolted  against  both  these  industries  to  such 
an  extent  that  neither  the  learning  of  my 
master  nor  the  authority  of  my  father,  by 
whose  commands  I  was  perpetually  harassed, 
nor  yet  the  prayers,  or  rather  the  recrimi- 
nations  of  my  friends,  could  bend  it  in  either 
direction.  It  was  wholly  drawn  by  strong 
affection  towards  poetry.  Not  a  sudden  im- 
pulse, but  the  oldest  and  most  deeply  rooted 
instinct  led  me  upon  that  path  ;  for  I  well 
remember  that  before  I  reached  the  age  of 
seven,  before  I  set  eyes  on  any  works  of 
fiction,  before  I  went  to  school,  and  when  I 
hardly  knew  the  rudiments  of  letters,  my 
nature  was  already  urging  me  to  invent,  and 
I  began  to  produce  trifling  poems.  These 
indeed  possessed  no  value,  since  my  intel- 
lectual  powers  at  that  tender  age  were  insuffì- 
cient  for  such  arduous  performances.  How- 
ever, when  I  had  well-nigh  reached  maturity, 
and  was  become  my  own  master,  then,  at  no 
man's  bidding  and  through  no  man  s  teaching, 

17  B 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

against  the  opposition  of  my  father  who  con- 
demned  such  studies  vehemently,  I  resorted 
spontaneously  to  the  little  which  I  knew  of 
the  poetic  art,  and  this  art  I  have  since 
pursued  with  the  greatest  eagerness,  studying 
the  Works  of  its  professors  with  incredible 
delight,  and  straining  ali  my  ability  to  under- 
stand  them.  And,  wonderful  to  relate,  while 
yet  I  had  no  knowledge  on  what  or  on  how 
many  feet  a  verse  should  run  ;  and  though 
I  sturdily  repelled  the  appellation,  ali  my 
acquaintances  used  to  cali  me  poet,  which, 
alas  !  I  am  not  yet.  I  doubt  not  that  if  my 
father  had  been  indulgent  to  my  wishes  while 
my  mind  was  pliable  in  youngest  years,  I 
should  have  turned  out  one  of  the  world's 
famous  poets.  The  fact,  however,  is  that 
through  bending  my  abilities  first  to  lucrative 
business,  and  next  to  a  lucrative  branch  of 
study,  I  failed  to  become  either  a  merchant 
or  a  canonist,  and  missed  the  chance  of  being 
an  illustrious  poet.  To  other  departments  of 
learning    I   have  paid    little  attention  ;  for 

i8 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

though  they  pleased  me,  they  did  not  compel 
me  with  the  same  attraction.  The  study  of 
the  sacred  volumes  engaged  my  attention,  but 
I  abandoned  it  as  unfit  for  my  advanced  years 
and  moderate  abilities,  judging  it  unbecoming 
for  an  old  man,  as  it  were,  to  begin  the  rudi- 
ments  of  a  new  science,  and  most  indecent 
for  anybody  to  attempt  that  which  he  cannot 
believe  himself  capable  of  performing.  Con- 
sequently,  since  I  think  God  was  pleased  to 
make  literature  my  vocation,  in  this  I  am 
determined  to  persevere." 

This  valuable  fragment  of  autobiography 
tells  US  ali  we  really  know  about  Boccaccio's 
early  years,  and  enables  us  to  map  them  out 
with  some  distinctness.  At  the  age  of  seven 
he  learned  the  rudiments  of  grammar  under 
Giovanni  da  Strada,  and  at  eleven  began  his 
training  as  a  merchant.  The  six  years  wasted 
in  that  fruitless  labour  brought  him  to  seven- 
teen,  when  his  father  changed  his  pian  of 
education.  We  cannot  determine  who  was  the 
eminent  jurist  under  whom  he  worked  during 

19 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

the  next  period  of  six  years.  Tradition,  always 
eager  to  unite  the  names  of  men  illustrious 
in  past  ages,  identifìes  this  teacher  with 
Cino  da  Pistoja.  But  we  have  reasons  for 
believing  that  Boccaccio  went  to  reside  at 
Naples  before  1330,  in  which  case  his  legai 
studies  must  have  been  carried  on  there.  Two 
points,  however,  are  certain.  It  was  at 
Naples  that  he  finally  dedicated  his  life  to 
literature  ;  and  at  Naples  he  met  the  woman 
who  exercised  decisive  influence  over  his  career 
as  poet. 

Boccaccio's  abandonment  of  lucrative  profes- 
sions  may  be  illustrated  by  a  charming  story, 
which  has  ali  the  freshness  in  it  of  the  morning 
of  the  modem  world.  Filippo  Villani,  a  con- 
temporary  writer  of  Fiorentine  biographies, 
clearly  attached  importance  to  the  incident  he 
relates  ;  and  it  is  possible  that  friends  of  Boc- 
caccio may  have  heard  it  from  his  own  lips. 
"  After  wandering  through  many  lands,  now 
bere,  now  there,  as  his  commercial  engage- 
ments  prompted,  he  reached  at  length  the  age 
of  twenty-five,  when  his  father's  orders  led  him 

20 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

to  take  up  his  abode  in  Naples.  There  it 
chanced  one  day  that  he  walked  forth  alone, 
and  carne  to  the  spot  where  Virgll's  dust 
lies  buried.  At  the  sight  of  this  sepulchre 
Giovanni  fell  into  long  musing  admiration  of 
the  man  whose  bones  it  covered,  brooding 
with  meditative  soul  upon  the  poet's  fame, 
until  he  fell  to  lamenting  his  own  fortune, 
whereby  he  was  compelled  against  his  will  to 
give  himself  to  irksome  cares  of  business. 
A  sudden  love  of  the  Pierian  Muses  smote  his 
heart,  and  turning  homeward  he  abandoned 
trade,  devoting  himself  with  passionate  ardour 
to  poetry  ;  wherein  very  shortly,  aided  alike 
by  his  noble  genius  and  his  burning  desire 
for  knowledge,  he  made  marvellous  progress. 
This  when  his  father  noticed,  and  perceived 
that  Heaven-sent  instinct  had  more  power 
with  his  son  than  the  paternal  will,  he  con- 
sented  to  his  studies,  and  helped  him  with 
such  assistance  as  lay  within  his  means."  Like 
ali  tales  of  the  sort,  this  story  must  not  be  taken 
literally,  but  rather  as  a  parable  of  what  did 
actually  happen.    Boccaccio  has  told  us  in  the 

21 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

passage  I  bave  quoted,  that  it  was  no  sudden 
impulse  which  made  him  devote  himself  to 
literature  ;  and  it  is  also  incredible  that  he 
should  have  studied  canon  law  for  six  whole 
years,  without  some  opportunities  of  acquiring 
the  rudiments  of  scholarship  for  which  he 
thirsted.  Indeed,  we  shall  see,  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  his  earliest  compositions,  that  he 
must  have  pursued  classical  studies,  if  only  in 
a  desultory  way,  for  many  years. 

The  lady  so  renowned  in  literature  as 
Fiammetta,  received  the  name  of  Maria  from 
her  parents.  She  was  born  in  wedlock  to  a 
Count  of  Aquino  ;  but  her  real  father  was 
supposed  to  be  Robert  of  Anjou,  king  of 
Naples.  Boccaccio  first  set  eyes  upon  her  in 
the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo  on  the  morning 
of  an  Easter  Ève — possibly  in  the  year  1338. 
If  that  date  be  correct,  he  was  then  aged 
twenty-five,  and  she  was  in  ali  probability 
three  years  older.  She  had  been  married 
some  time  to  a  gentleman  whose  name  and 
rank  are  alike  unknown  to  us.     It  will  be 


22 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

remembered  that  Petrarch  first  saw  his  Laura 
in  a  church  at  Avignon.  Laura  was  also  a 
married  woman,  with  whose  domestic  life  we 
are  unacquainted.  There  is  so  much  simi- 
larity  in  these  two  episodes  as  almost  to 
provoke  a  query  whether  Boccaccio  was  not 
deliberately  imitating  his  great  predecessor 
and  master  in  the  art  of  poetry.  His  subse- 
quent  relations  to  Fiammetta  are  hardly  less 
vague  and  shadowy  than  those  of  Petrarch  to 
Laura.  Dealing  with  this  famous  romance, 
one  is  tempted  to  wonder  whether  the  young 
man  who  had  now  resolved  on  literature,  did 
not  set  up  a  mistress  as  part  of  his  necessary 
equipment.  To  do  so  would  be,  however, 
inconsistent  with  sound  criticism.  A  certain 
element  of  ideahty  and  indistinctness  must  be 
acknowledged  in  Dante's  Beatrice,  in  Petrarch 's 
Laura,  and  in  Boccaccio's  Fiammetta.  Yet  we 
are  bound  to  accept  these  heroines  of  fame 
as  real  women,  who  powerfully  influenced  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  their  three  poet-lovers. 
It  is  impossible  to  transfer  ourselves  with  full 

23 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

intelligence  and  sympathy  into  the  psycho- 
logicai  conditions  of  those  mediseval  love 
affairs.  But  that  does  not  justify  our  evading 
the  difficulties  of  the  problem  by  curtly  saying 
there  is  nothing  in  it. 

How  Boccaccio,  the  simple  merchant's  son 
from  Florence,  carne  to  be  received  into  the 
Court-circle  in  which  Fiammetta  moved,  admits 
of  some  debate.  As  yet  he  was  undistin- 
guished  either  as  a  Latin  scholar  or  as  an 
Italian  poet.  In  ali  probability  he  owed  his 
introduction  to  Niccolo  Acciainoli,  a  Fiorentine 
of  a  wealthy  and  distinguished  house,  who 
settled  at  Naples  as  a  man  of  business  in  the 
year  1331,  and  afterwards  rose  by  his  abilities 
to  the  rank  of  Grand  Seneschal  and  feudatory 
of  the  kingdom.  However  that  may  be,  we 
should  bear  in  mind  that  one  excellent  feature 
of  Italian  society  was  its  almost  democratic 
readiness  to  place  men  of  genius  on  an  equal 
footing  with  princes  in  their  hours  of  relaxa- 
tion.  That  Boccaccio,  though  he  did  not  rank 
as  orator  or  poet  or  professor  of  the  classica 

24 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

at  this  period — any  one  of  which  distinctions 
would  bave  served  as  a  sufficient  passport — 
must  bave  been  remarkable  for  bis  talents, 
cannot  indeed  be  questioned.  Tbe  autbor  of 
tbe  **  Decameron  "  was  one  of  tbe  most 
brilliant  story-tellers  wbom  tbe  world  bas 
seen  ;  and  telling  stories  formed  a  favourite 
pastime  witb  gentle  men  and  women  of  tbe 
fourteentb  century.  Having  once  obtained 
tbe  opportunity  of  displaying  tbis  gift,  bis 
society  was  sure  to  bave  been  sougbt  after. 
At  any  rate,  bis  earliest  essays  in  romance 
prove  incontestably  tbat  be  bad  mixed  witb 
fasbionable  people  during  tbe  period  of  bis 
first  residence  at  Naples. 

Wbat  bis  actual  relations  to  la  Fiammetta 
were,  is  dubious.  He  says  tbat,  on  tbe  occa- 
sion  of  tbeir  second  meeting,  sbe  requested 
him  to  rebandle  tbe  old  Frencb  romance  of 
"Florie  et  Blanceflor."  Obedient  to  ber  com- 
mands,  he  produced  tbe  prose-tale  of  Filo- 
copo."  Beyond  this  account  of  tbeir  second 
meeting  at  a  convent  outside  the   walls  of 

25 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Naples,  we  possess  no  definite  record  of  their 
intercourse.  If  we  were  to  trust  the  autobio- 
graphical  passages  of  the  "Ameto"  and 
"  Amorosa  Visione,"  and  to  accept  the  novel 
of  "Fiammetta"  as  anything  approaching  to 
real  history,  we  should  have  to  infer  that  she 
fully  returned  his  passion.  But  ali  these  works 
are  precisely  of  that  kind  which  Goethe  termed 
"  Truth  and  Fiction."  It  is  clear  in  them  that 
the  poet  and  romancer  has  given  free  rein  to 
his  fancy.  Fact  is  so  embroidered  and  inter- 
fused  with  poetry  that  no  inferences  can  be 
safely  drawn  from  them.  The  case  is  different 
with  Boccaccio's  sonnets,  which  more  even 
than  Dante  s  and  Petrarch  s  have  the  accent  of 
spontaneous  veracit}\  Their  artistic  inferiority 
secures  for  them  a  certain  air  of  correspondence 
with  truth.  Many  of  these  poems  which  are 
devoted  to  la  Fiammetta,  teli  a  very  different 
tale  from  the  fictions  above  mentioned.  In 
them  Boccaccio  compares  his  mistress  to  a 
block  of  marble  which  no  beams  of  love  can 
warm,  complains  of  her  cruelty,  disdain,  and 

26 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

icy  coldness,  and  wonders,  at  the  end  of  five 
years  spent  in  adoration,  whether  she  has  ever 
cared  to  learn  her  lover's  name.  I  think 
that  his  passion  for  Fiammetta  was  genuine, 
although  he  heightened  and  idealised  its  colour 
for  the  purpose  of  his  art.  But  I  see  no  reason 
to  believe  that  it  was  reciprocated,  or  that  he 
lived  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  lady  whose 
name  was  always  on  his  lips.  She  certainly 
inspired  him  to  compose  the  principal  Italian 
Works  of  his  early  manhood.  For  her  he 
wrote  Filocopo."  To  her  he  dedicated  the 
Teseide  "  and  Filostrato."  She  is  the 
heroine  of  Ameto  "  and  ''La  Fiammetta." 
She  reappears  in  the  Amorosa  Visione," 
and  may  be  traced  in  "La  Caccia  di  Diana  "  and 
the  "  Ninfale  Fiesolano."  Even  in  his  master- 
piece,  the  "Decameron,"  composed  when  her 
influence  was  clearly  on  the  wane,  he  pays 
her  homage.  In  fact,  he  chose  her  for  his 
Muse,  as  poets  in  those  days  were  wont  to 
choose  one  lady  around  whose  image  they 
allowed  their  thoughts  and  sentiments  to  crys- 

27 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

tallize  until  the  vision  became  for  them  some- 
thing  between  a  reality  and  an  ideal.  It  is 
necessary  to  form  some  conception  of  the 
peculiar  conditions  under  which  the  imagi- 
nation  worked  in  an  age  of  allegory  and 
abstractions,  in  order  to  comprehend  the 
tenacity  with  which  men  Hke  Dante,  Petrarch, 
Cino,  Guido  Cavalcanti,  and  Boccaccio  clung 
to  the  names  and  memories  of  worshipped 
women,  whose  flesh-and-blood  reality  seems 
doubtful  to  US  while  we  read  about  them.  If 
Fiammetta  emerges  into  more  distinctness 
than  Beatrice  or  Laura  or  Selvaggia,  it  is  not 
perhaps  because  Boccaccio  lived  on  terms  of 
dose  intimacy  with  the  mistress  of  his  heart 
and  Muse  of  his  Parnassus,  but  because  he 
was  a  novelist  and  not  a  lyric  poet.  The 
themes  he  handled  under  her  inspiration 
bordered  upon  realism.  In  the  process  of 
working  at  them,  he  gave  her  a  fictitious 
personality,  which  has  led  his  readers  to  sup- 
pose that  his  relations  to  her  were  by  no 
means  of  a  merely  ideal  kind. 

28 


Ili 


MONG  the  Italian  works  which  I  have 


^  recently  enumerateci  as  due  to  Fiam- 
metta's  inspiration,  Filocopo"  takes  the  first 
place.  This  is  the  earliest  composition  by 
Boccaccio  known  to  us,  and  it  deserves  to  be 
called  the  earhest  monument  of  genuine  Renais- 
sance Hterature.  In  it  appears  for  the  first 
time  that  fusion  of  mediaeval  and  classical 
material  under  forms  of  a  distinctly  hybrid 
modem  art,  that  marriage  of  Faust  and  Helen, 
with  the  bizarre  resultant  birth  of  a  new  genius, 
which  constitutes  the  real  note  of  the  transi- 
tional  period  known  to  us  as  Renaissance. 
Boccaccio  adopted  for  his  groundwork  a 
romance  of  possibly  Byzantine  origin,  which 
had  already  been  popularised  in  several 
languages  of  Europe,  and  was  well  known  to 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

the  Italians  of  his  day.  His  originality  did 
not  consist  in  the  choice  of  subject — that  was 
given  him  by  Fiammetta — but  in  its  handling. 
The  main  story  became  a  framework  for 
slightly  connected  episodes,  for  descriptions  of 
landscape,  for  pictures  of  life,  and  for  analyses 
of  passion,  interwoven  with  extraordinary 
luxuriance  of  fancy  in  a  labyrinth  of  highly 
coloured  scenes.  Together  with  this  addition 
of  new  motives  and  new  sources  of  interest 
to  the  fable,  an  entirely  new  form  is  given  to 
the  manner  of  narration.  The  mythology  of 
Greece  and  Rome  makes  sudden  and  imperious 
intrusion  into  the  region  of  romance.  Far- 
fetched  terms  are  invented  in  order  to  accom- 
modate  this  scholarly  Olympus  to  the  elements 
of  Christian  thought  and  the  conditions  of 
mediseval  experience.  We  find  ourselves,  so 
far  as  literary  form  goes,  transported  into  a 
conventional  wonder-world  of  imagery,  allusion, 
and  rhetorical  periphrasis.  This  explanation 
renders  the  reading  of  Filocopo  "  at  the 
present  day  well-nigh  intolerable.    Yet  it  was 

30 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

precisely  this  which  attraeteci  contemporaries, 
not  only  by  its  novelty,  but  also  by  its  adapta- 
tion  to  the  taste  of  the  Revival.  Italian  prose, 
again,  which  had  hitherto  been  practised  with 
the  dove-like  simplicity  of  the  Fioretti  di 
S.  Francesco,"  or  with  the  grave  parsimony  of 
the  Vita  Nuova,"  is  now  made  to  march  in 
sonorous  periods.  The  language,  no  less  than 
the  stuff  and  manner  of  "  Filocopo,"  proclaims 
the  advent  of  Renaissance  art.  In  Petrarch 
the  two  streams  of  literature,  which  were 
destined  to  coalesce,  had  flowed  apart.  He 
wrote  Italian  verse  with  exquisite  purity  ;  and 
he  attempted  to  restore  classical  culture  with 
conscientious  thoroughness.  Boccaccio  in  his 
earliest  experiment  as  author  mixed  the  two 
sources.  But  so  vivid  was  the  poet's  naturai 
genius  that,  while  accomplishing  this  revolution 
in  manner,  while  so  rehandling  matter,  he  intro- 
duced  at  the  same  time  a  spiritual  element, 
partly  sensuous,  party  sentimental,  partly  scien- 
tific,  which  was  neither  classical  nor  mediaeval, 
but  emphatically  modem.   We  must  remember 

31 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

that  the  people  of  Boccaccio's  day  were  familiar 
with  the  story  of  Filocopo."  We  must 
remember  that  they  delighted  in  those  long- 
drawn  romances,  and  were  accustomed  to  follo w 
their  labyrinthine  windings  with  facility. 

We  must  also  remember  that  what  seems  to 
US  rococò  and  affected  in  Boccaccio's  mytho- 
logical  rhetoric  and  masquerade  machinery, 
had  for  them  the  charm  of  brilliant  style  and 
learning  genially  displayed.  What  gives  us 
trouble  and  inflicts  fatigue,  was  fascinating  at 
that  epoch.  Having  then  transported  our- 
selves,  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  into  their 
atmosphere  of  thought  and  feeling,  we  shall  be 
able  to  comprehend  the  enthusiasm  which  that 
glowing  delineation  of  naturai  existence,  those 
ardent  outpourings  of  passion,  that  pompous 
and  yet  liquid  diction,  those  finished  landscapes, 
that  richly  coloured  tone  conveyed  by  aptly 
chosen  words,  inspired  in  men  and  women 
accustomed  to  mediaeval  directness  or  dreami- 
ness.  Boccaccio's  originality  in  the  "  Filocopo" 
is  incontestable.    We  may  condemn  his  work 

32 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

as  artificial  and  its  form  as  meretricious.  We 
may  deplore  the  direction  which  it  gave  to 
literature.  But  we  shall  be  uncritical  if  we 
forget  that  such  artificial  work,  such  ornaments, 
such  mixed  species  of  art,  were  what  the  age 
of  nascent  humanism  demanded,  and  that  with- 
out  them  the  Italians  could  not  have  arrived  at 
the  plastic  perfection  of  Ariosto.  The  arras- 
work  of  this  embroiderer,  we  say,  is  glittering, 
is  splendid,  is  effective.  But  it  is  composed  on 
radically  false  principles.  It  is  not  classical,  it 
is  not  mediseval,  it  is  not  modem.  True  ;  but 
its  originality  consists  precisely  in  the  fact  that 
it  satisfied  an  age  which  was  not  classical,  which 
was  not  mediaeval,  which  was  not  modem.  It 
fulfiUed  the  needs  of  a  transition-age,  which 
had  to  reabsorb  antiquity,  to  free  itself  from 
mediseval  impediments,  to  appropriate  the 
modem  liberty  of  sense  and  intellect  on  lines 
of  the  least  palpable  resistance.  To  estimate 
the  immediate  influence  of  the  Filocopo  "  is 
difficult  ;  to  feel  sure  that  it  would  have  deter- 
mined  the  course  of  Italian  literature,  if  it  had 

33  c 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

stood  alone,  is  impossible.  But  it  was  only  the 
first  of  many  similar  productions  by  the  same 
author  ;  and  reviewing  these  in  their  totality, 
we  are  justified  in  asserting  that  Boccaccio 
created  for  his  nation  the  style  which  cul- 
minated  in  the  "  Cinque  Cento."  Men  are  more 
imitative  than  one  commonly  allows.  But  for 
this  great  writer's  originality  in  perceiving  that 
a  hybrid  form  of  art  was  adapted  to  his  age, 
and  expressive  of  its  stirrings,  but  for  the 
attractive  examples  which  he  gave  of  the  mixed 
style,  it  is  possible  that  Italian  literature  might 
bave  taken  a  very  different  course.  Boccaccio 
intervened  at  a  criticai  moment,  and  efìfected 
that  junction  between  humanism  and  vernacular 
poetry  which  proved  afterwards  decisive  for 
one  of  the  world's  most  brilliant  and  fruitful 
epochs.  Had  he  been  suffered  to  pursue  his 
own  course  of  study  unchecked  in  adolescence, 
this  same  result  would  not  bave  been  attained. 
We  might  bave  had  a  second  Petrarch,  of  a 
somewhat  diverse  kind  and  calibre.  We 
should  certainly  bave  had  a  more  accomplished 

34 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

scholar  than  Boccaccio  became.  He  would 
bave  left  bebind  him  eclogues  and  episdes 
marked  by  purer  Latinity,  erudite  treatises  dis- 
playing  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  witb  the 
spirit  of  the  classics,  and  probably  some  ambi- 
tious  monument  of  ItaHan  verse  in  the  alle- 
gorica! or  epic  style.  But  we  should  not  bave 
possessed  the  "  Filocopo,"  and  many  other 
Works  of  the  same  order,  which  were  forma- 
tive of  modem  literature.  What  is  noticeable 
in  this  first  essay,  is  that  its  learning,  though 
scattered  broadcast  over  every  page,  remains 
that  of  a  dilettante  rather  than  a  scientific 
student.  Boccaccio  employs  it  for  adornment 
and  stylistic  purposes.  He  revels  in  it  with 
the  gusto  of  an  epicure,  for  whom  its 
antique  flavour  is  delicious.  Yet  it  has 
not  penetrated  bis  heart,  or  remade  bis 
intellect  ;  nor  has  it  moulded  the  inner 
substance  of  bis  art.  On  the  other  band, 
the  genial,  the  enduringly  delightful  elements 
in  this  romance  —  its  feeling  for  nature, 
its   experience    of  life,    its   keen  apprecia- 

35 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

tion  of  sensuous  pleasure — could  not  have 
been   acquired   in   the  study  of  a  scholar. 
Boccaccio  owed  these  things  to  the  fortune 
he  bewailed  at  Virgirs  tomb,  to  the  hard 
necessity  of  wandering  through  many  cities 
in  pursuit  of  trade.   We  may  pause  to  reflect 
upon  the  crooked  ways  whereby  some  men 
of  genius  are  fashioned  for  their  proper  work. 
Had  Boccaccio  been  free  to  follow  his  own 
bent  in  youth,  he  would  have  lost  ali  this, 
which  made  him  far  more  powerful  in  the 
future  than  his  idol,  Petrarch.    Had  his  father 
succeeded  in  that  cherished  pian  of  shaping 
him  into  a  merchant,  he  would  have  accumu- 
lated  wealth,  but  the  many  aspects  of  the 
world  would  have  been  wasted  on  him.  As 
it  was,  the  idleness  of  those  twelve  years  of 
misdirected   energy,    which  he  bewailed  in 
middle  life,  and  which  was  grief  and  sorrow 
to  his  parent,  endowed  the  man,  when  he 
applied  himself  to  literature,  with  special  gifts 
and  peculiar  aptitudes.    This  idleness,  while 
it  precluded  him  from  becoming  a  first-rate 

36 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Latin  and  Greek  scholar,  fitted  him  to  found 
the  Italian   style  of  the  coming   age,  and 
prepared    him     for    his    masterpiece,  the 
Decameron." 

I  bave  dwelt  at  some  length  upon  "  Filo- 
copo,"  because  it  allowed  me  to  say  things 
which  are  generally  applicable  to  the  writings 
of  Boccaccio's  early  manhood.  In  dealing  with 
the  rest,  it  will  not  be  needful  to  repeat  these 
observations. 

While  engaged  upon  the  composition  of 
Filocopo  "  at  Naples,  Boccaccio  was  recalled 
by  his  father  to  Tuscany.  That  may  bave 
happened  at  the  end  of  1339,  or  perhaps  in 
1340.  So  far  as  we  can  see  through  the 
obscurity  which  involves  his  movements, 
Boccaccio  remained  at  Florence  or  Certaldo 
until  1345,  busily  employed  in  literature. 
Those  five  years  must  certainly  bave  formed 
the  most  productive  period  of  his  life.  He 
was  not  happy  in  his  native  land.  Florence, 
distracted  by  internai  quarrels  and  enfeebled 
hy  commercial  failures,  had  placed  herself 

37 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

under  the  protection  of  the  Duke  of  Athens. 
Instead  of  being  a  wise  dictator,  Walter  of 
Brienne  proved  hìmself  a  rapacious  tyrant,  and 
had  to  be  expelled  by  force.  The  city  was 
plunged  stili  deeper  into  trouble  by  these  com- 
motions.  Though  Boccaccio  never  allowed 
himself  to  withdraw  from  study  by  public 
events,  yet  the  disturbance  of  society  around 
him  must  bave  been  irksome  to  one  who  had 
been  basking  in  the  ease  and  luxury  of 
Naples  under  King  Robert's  paternal  govern- 
ment.  Deeper  discomforts  rendered  bis  pre- 
sent  life  distasteful.  These  arose  from  the 
incompatibility  of  views  and  temper  between 
him  and  the  elder  Boccaccio.  At  the  dose  of 
Ameto,"  which  must  bave  been  written  soon 
after  1 340,  he  draws  a  painful  picture  of  their 
household.  After  reverting  in  strains  of  fer- 
vent  enthusiasm  to  the  delights  which  he  had 
left  behind  at  Naples,  he  proceeds  to  speak  of 
his  own  Tuscan  home  :  Here  one  laughs 
but  seldom.     The  dark  silent  melancholy 

*  "  Ameto,"  p.  199. 

38 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


house  takes  and  retains  me  much  agaìnst  my 
will  ;  for  bere  the  sour  and  horrible  aspect  of 
an  old  man,  frozen,  uncouth,  and  avaricious, 
adds  continuai  affliction  to  my  saddened 
mood."  Nothing  but  extreme  irritation  and 
dejection  of  spirits  can  have  justified  this  por- 
trait  of  his  father,  who,  if  we  may  trust  Villani, 
was  dealing  with  him  generously.  Again,  in 
the  Amorosa  Visione,"  composed  at  the 
same  period,  he  describes  the  old  Boccaccio 
among  the  misers,  employed  perpetually  in 
scratching  tiny  morsels  with  his  nails  from  a 
huge  mountain  of  gold,  his  whole  heart  being 
set  on  money-making."^ 

It  was  in  such  circumstances,  then,  that  the 
poema  and  prose  fìctions,  with  which  we  have 
now  to  deal,  were  composed.  The  Ameto  " 
may  be  described  as  an  idyllic  romance,  written 
partly  in  verse  and  partly  in  prose.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  Italy,  but  the  story  carries  us 
to  that  ideal  Arcadia,  which  fascinated  the 
imagination  of  the  Renaissance.    "  Ameto  "  is 

*  "  Amorosa  Visione,"  p.  59. 
39 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

indeed  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  romantic 
idylls  which  became  fashionable  throughout 
Europe  by  the  industry  of  Sannazzaro,  Monte- 
mayor  and  Sidney.  Critics  have  suggested 
that  its  form  may  have  been  derived  from 
Petronius,  or  Apuleius,  or  "Aucassin  et 
Nicolette."  But  such  inquiries  are  to  little 
purpose.  In  bis  Ameto  "  Boccaccio  pro- 
jected  a  new  species  of  literature,  the  pedigree 
of  which  can  be  traced  in  the  imitations  of 
successors,  but  which  owed  little  to  any  pre- 
existing  work.  The  romance  was  intended  to 
show  in  what  way  wild  and  rustie  natures  may 
be  humanised  by  love — a  theme  which  the 
author  rehandled  in  his  novel  of  "  Cimone.""^ 
The  main  story  served,  however,  also  as  a 
framework  for  introducing  a  variety  of  episodes 
and  secondary  tales.  Boccaccio's  genius 
delighted  in  what  the  Italians  cali  intrecciatura^ 
that  is,  the  interweaving  of  tale  with  tale  upon 
a  large  tapestry  of  invention,  Here,  again,  he 
determined  the  course  of  Renaissance  fiction, 

*  "Decameron." 
40 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

the  special  feature  of  which,  especially  in  its 
finest  poetry,  is  a  luxuriant  display  of  episodes, 
combined  into  a  splendid  whole  by  slender 
links  of  almost  casual  connection. 

The  Amorosa  Visione  "  was  produced 
under  the  same  conditions  as  **  Ameto."  It 
shows  that  Boccaccio  was  stili  wandering, 
uncertain  of  his  destination,  in  the  fields  of 
literature.  Having  created  romance  of  a  new 
species  in  "Filocopo"  and  Ameto,"  he  re- 
verted  in  this  poem  to  the  allegories  of  his 
predecessors.  The  "  Amorosa  Visione  "  is 
written  in  manifest  rivalry  with  Dante,  and 
with  the  "  Trionfi  "  of  Petrarch.  It  leads 
the  soul  through  various  contemplations  of 
learning,  fame,  wealth,  love,  and  fortune,  to 
the  supreme  felicity  of  life.  That,  says  the 
poet,  is  the  union  of  intelligence  and  moral 
energy  in  an  enthusiasm  of  the  soul.  Lower 
ambitions,  on  which  the  activities  of  men  are 
usually  spent,  have  to  be  abandoned  in  the 
search  for  happiness.  We  pursue  the  quest 
with   some  impatience  to   its  long-deferred 

41 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

conclusion.  But  when  Boccaccio  reveals  his 
secret,  the  conclusion  is  discovered  to  be 
lame  and  impotent.  The  enthusiasm  of  the 
soul,  to  which  he  brings  us,  turns  out  to  be 
the  union  of  two  beings  in  a  mutuai  passion  ; 
and  the  "  Amorosa  Visione  "  closes  in  a  para- 
dise of  sensual  beatitude.  Unless  Boccaccio 
intended  to  satirise  the  mystical  allegories  of 
a  former  age,  which  I  do  not  believe,  he 
appears  before  us  in  this  poem  as  a  Balaam 
who  blesses  what  the  Muse  had  summoned 
him  to  curse.  The  fact  is  that  he  had  no 
other  prophecy  to  utter,  and  what  he  did  utter 
he  regarded  as  a  prophecy.  Like  ali  his 
compositions  at  this  period,  the  "  Amorosa 
Visione  "  reveals  the  closing  of  one  era  and 
the  opening  of  another.  The  forms  of  medi- 
seval  idealism  are  pressed  into  the  service  of 
Renaissance  realism.  Naturai  instinct,  against 
which  Dante  strove  with  ali  his  might,  and 
which  Petrarch  clothed  in  the  subtlest  drapery 
of  sentiment,  is  deified  in  an  impassioned 
apotheosis. 

42 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

The  future  author  of  the  Decameron  " 
betrays  himself  unconsciously  and  ali  against 
his  inclination  in  the  Amorosa  Visione." 
The  poem  is  furthermore  remarkable,  because 
it  first  exhibits  an  insincerity  which  became 
stereotyped  in  Renaissance  literature.  Time- 
honoured  phrases  and  forms  of  art  are  used, 
which  were  adapted  to  obsolete  modes  of 
thinking  and  feeling  about  love.  Chivalrous 
mysticism  is  no  longer  intelligible  ;  but  its 
symbols  are  retained  for  the  expression  of 
frank  human  appetite.  This,  at  least,  is  how  I 
read  the  Amorosa  Visione,"  and  why  I  think 
it  has  a  special  value  for  the  understanding 
of  Boccaccio  and  his  relation  to  the  age  which 
foUowed.  After  innumerable  modifications, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Amorosa  Visione"  found 
its  ultimate  expression  in  Marino's  Adone." 
Studying  it,  we  are  inclined  to  wonder  how 
far  the  allegories  of  chivalry,  upon  which 
Boccaccio  moulded  his  poem,  had  any  corre- 
spondence  to  the  truth  of  human  feeling.  It 
seems  at  first  sight,  if  I  may  use  two  vulgar 

43 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

metaphors,  to  knock  the  bottom  out  of  them, 
to  let  the  cat  out  of  their  imposing  bag.  But 
further  consideration  of  the  changes  which 
were  being  wrought  at  that  time  in  society, 
delivers  us  from  this  apparent  paradox. 
Woman,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  was  not  yet 
known  as  the  companion,  but  either  as  the 
goddess  or  the  slave  of  man.  The  Renais- 
sance effected  her  emancipation  from  this 
dilemma.  She  took  a  new  position  in  the 
scheme  of  life,  which  rendered  the  allegorical 
language  of  metaphysical  chivalry  inapplicable. 
Yet  this  language  had  to  be  retained  through 
the  transition  period  which  followed,  because 
it  was  respectful  and  was  sanctioned  by  the 
best  associations  of  civility  emergent  from  a 
phase  of  semi-barbarism.  The  insincerities  of 
the  Amorosa  Visione  "  and  of  Renaissance 
lyric  poetry  conducted  literature  in  this  way  to 
modem  freedom  of  expression,  in  which  feel- 
ing finds  its  own  appropriate  and  naturai 
vent. 

The  "  Ninfale  Fiesolano  "  is  a  tale  in  verse, 
44 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

written  certainly  under  Fiammetta's  influence, 
which  connects  itself  to  some  extent  with  the 
*'Ameto."  Under  the  form  of  a  pastoral,  it 
shows  how  gentle  emotions  lead  to  culture. 
Affrico  is  a  shepherd  of  the  hill-region  behind 
Fiesole;  Mensola  is  a  nymph  of  Diana,  dedi- 
cated  to  chastity.  They  meet  and  love. 
When  Mensola  has  been  changed  into  a 
fountain  by  the  virgin  goddess,  whose  vows 
she  broke,  the  poem  winds  up  with  a  myth 
invented  to  explain  the  founding  of  Fiesole. 
Civil  society  succeeds  to  the  savagery  of  the 
woodland,  and  love  is  treated  as  the  vestibule 
to  refinement.  The  two  parts  of  the  poem, 
the  romantic  and  the  mythological,  are  ill- 
connected  ;  and  except  in  the  long  episode  of 
Mensola's  seduction,  Boccaccio  displays  less 
than  his  usuai  power  of  narration.  That 
episode  might  be  separated  from  the  rest.  It 
breaks  the  style  adopted  for  the  beginning  and 
conclusion  of  the  poem,  lapsing  more  than 
once  into  obscenity  but  thinly  veiled  by 
innuendoes  in  vogue  among  the  Tuscans  at 

45 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

that  period.  It  wouid  not  have  been  necessary 
to  dwell  upon  this  composition,  except  that  we 
find  in  it  another  new  species  of  art  invented 
by  Boccaccio — the  versified  novella — which 
afterwards  proved  so  great  a  favourite  with  his 
successors.  In  the  '*  Ninfale  Fiesolano  "  he 
employed  ottava  rima.  Critics  for  a  long  time 
believed  that  he  was  the  creator  of  this  stanza. 
But  we  know  now  that  he  borrowed  it  from 
the  people  and  adapted  it  to  the  uses  of  polite 
literature. 

Boccaccio  made  further  use  of  the  octave 
stanza  in  two  epical  poems  of  a  more  ambitious 
flight.  BotKhave  special  interest  for  English- 
men,  on  account  of  their  influence  on  our  own 
literature.    They  are  called    La  Teseide"  and 

Filostrato."  From  the  dedications,  without 
dates,  it  appears  that  both  poems  were  com- 
posed  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Fiammetta  ; 
the  former  at  some  time  when  her  lover  had 
some  reason  to  complain  of  her  unkindness  ; 
the  latter  in  the  town  of  Naples,  on  some  occa- 
sion  when  Fiammetta  had  removed  into  the 

46 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

mountain  region  of  the  Abruzzi  for  change  of 
air  or  other  business.  » 

The  "Teseide"  was  founded  on  an  ancient 
love-tale,  which  Boccaccio  translated  for  the 
first  time  into  modem  language,  decking  it 
with  rhyme  and  metre.  It  owes  its  title  to 
the  fact  that  the  scene  of  the  romance  was 
laid  at  Athens  in  the  reign  of  Theseus. 
The  poem  pretends  to  be  an  epic  ;  but  it  is 
nothing  really  but  an  episode,  capable  of 
novehstic  or  dramatic  treatment.  From  this 
point  of  view,  the  fable  deserves  our  highest 
approbation,  and  the  man  who  brouglit  it  into 
literary  prominence  must  be  acclaimed  as  an 
inventor.  Palamon  and  Arcite,  old  friends  and 
tried,  are  imprisoned  in  the  same  castle.  Both 
see  and  love  Emilia.  It  is  arranged  between 
them  that  they  shall  contend  fairly  with  one 
another  for  the  prize.  Arcite,  however,  having 
been  released  from  prison,  treacherously  em- 
ploys  his  liberty  in  paying  suit  to  Emilia. 
Finally,  the  two  friends  meet  in  the  lists  of 
chivalry.    Arcite  is  wounded  and  dies  ;  Pala- 

47 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

mon  wins  the  hand  of  Emilia.  That  is  the 
bare  outline  of  the  story.  Chaucer  rehandled 
it  in  the  Knighte's  Tale."  Shakespeare  and 
Fletcher  dramatised  it  in  The  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen."  Dryden  retouched  it  in  his  in- 
comparable  poem  of  "  Palamon  and  Arcite." 
And  so  the  story  has  gone  sounding  on 
through  the  spacious  times  of  English  litera- 
ture.  But  it  was  Boccaccio  who  first  "fished 
the  murex  up,"  if  I  may  use  the  metaphor  of 
Robert  Browning. 

English  literature  owes  a  similar  debt  to 
"  Filostrato."  Chaucer  founded  his  Troilus 
and  Creseide"  upon  this  poem,  while  Shake- 
speare dramatised  it  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida," 
Under  the  form  of  an  epic,  Filostrato  "  is 
really  a  versified  novel  of  the  passions.  In 
spite  of  Greek  names  and  incidents  borrowed 
from  the  tale  of  Troy,  we  feel  ourselves  to  be 
studying  some  contemporary  love-tale,  narrated 
with  the  vigour  of  a  master  in  the  arts  of 
story-telling  and  of  psychological  analysis. 
The  dominant  sentiments  are  as  alien  to  the 

48 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

heroism  of  the  Homeric  age,  as  they  are  con- 
genial  with  the  customs  of  a  corrupt  Italian 
city.  AH  interest  centres  upon  the  three  chief 
personages,  Troilo,  Pandaro,  and  Griseida. 
In  Troilo  a  feverish  type  of  character,  over- 
mastered  by  passion  which  is  rather  a  delirium 
of  the  senses  than  a  mood  of  feeling,  has  been 
painted  with  a  force  and  fulness  that  remind 
US  of  the  Fiammetta,"  where  the  same 
disease  of  the  soul  is  delineated  in  a  woman. 
Pandaro  exhibits  an  utterly  depraved  nature, 
revelling  in  seduction,  glutting  imagination 
with  the  spectacle  of  satiated  lust.  The  por- 
trait  is  ugly  ;  but  the  execution  is  so  masterly 
that  we  do  not  wonder  at  the  name  of  this 
fictitious  person  having  passed  into  common 
language  to  indicate  the  vilest  of  his  sex. 
The  frenzied  appetite  of  Troilo,  Pandaro's 
ruffian  arts,  and  the  graduai  yieldings  of 
Griseida  to  a  voluptuous  inclination  reveal  the 
hand  of  a  great  literary  draughtsman.  The 
second  and  third  cantos  of  the  poem  are 
remarkable  for  their  dramatic  movement  and 

49  » 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

wealth  of  sensuous  fancy,  not  rìsing  to  sub- 
limity,  not  refined  with  the  poetry  of  senti- 
ment,  but  welling  copiously  from  a  genuinely 
ardent  nature.  The  love  described  is  nakedly 
and  unaffectedly  luxurious  ;  it  is  an  over- 
mastering  impulse,  crowned  at  last  with  the 
joy  of  carnai  fruition.  Being  only  interested 
in  the  portrayal  of  his  hero's  love-languors, 
ecstasies,  and  disappointment,  Boccaccio  hur- 
ries  the  poem  to  a  slovenly  conclusion.  In 
fact,  Filostrato"  may  be  best  described  as 
the  epic  of  the  licentious  and  ephemeral 
amour. 

The  poems  I  bave  been  reviewing  are  ali 
of  them  distinguished  by  great  qualities  ;  by 
fecundity  of  invention,  by  originality  of  concep- 
tion,  by  wealth  of  fancy  and  descriptive  bril- 
liance,  by  rapidity  and  vividness  of  narration. 
Yet,  judged  as  poems,  they  leave  much  to  be 
desired.  The  style  is  never  choice,  and  often 
simply  vulgar.  In  some  parts  the  execution  is 
unpardonably  slovenly.  Proportion  is  neglected. 
You  feel  that  the  author  only  sympathises 

50 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

with  certain  aspects  of  his  work,  mainly  the 
emotional,  and  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the 
rest,  because  it  did  not  stimulate  his  fancy. 
He  gives  the  expression  of  being  always  in  a 
hurry.     There  is  a  want  of  self-control,  an 
absence  of  loving  care.    In  other  words,  Boc- 
caccio fails  to  be  an  artist  in  these  composi- 
tions.    When  the  verse  is  good,  it  sounds  like 
the  outpouring  of  his  own  desires  and  passions 
in  self-indulgent  improvisation.    He  does  not, 
in  the  spirit  of  a  true  poetic  artist,  view  the 
object  from  outside,  and  feel  the  paramount 
necessity  of  giving  every  part  its  proper  value. 
To  teli  the  tale  with  brief  and  hasty  energy,  to 
dilate  upon  its  voluptuous  incidents  and  themes 
of  passionate  emotion  with  burning  rhetoric, 
satisfied  his  sense  of  poetry.   In  fact,  he  was 
working  with  inappropriate  materials.  Nature 
had  made  him  an  artist;  but  verse  was  not 
the  vehicle  his  genius  demanded  ;  when  he 
quitted  verse  for  prose,  he  became  a  poet. 
It  seems  paradoxical  to  say  this,  when  we 
remember  that  he  gave  the  octave  stanza  and 

51 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

the  style  of  narrative  poetry  to  Italian  litera- 
ture.  Yet  the  imperfections  of  his  efforts 
in  verse  composition  cannot  be  otherwise 
explained. 

Before  quitting  the  ItaHan  works  of  fiction 
which  Boccaccio  composed  for  Fiammetta,  I 
must  speak  of  the  novel  which  bears  her 
name.  When,  where,  and  whether  Boccaccio 
wrote  this  novel,  remains  a  puzzle.  How  far 
it  is  autobiographical,  admits  of  grave  doubt 
Accepting  La  Fiammetta  "  as  a  piece  of 
Boccaccio's  writing,  are  we  to  take  it  as  the 
record  of  personal  experience?  It  seems 
almost  impossible  to  do  so.  How  could  a 
hook  of  this  sort  about  a  married  woman 
have  been  given  to  the  public  by  her  titular 
lover  ?  The  story  can  be  briefly  told.  Panfilo, 
under  which  name  Boccaccio  used  to  indicate 
himself,  is  compelled  to  leave  Fiammetta  at 
Naples,  while  he  goes,  at  his  father's  com- 
mand,  to  Florence.  She  hears  that  he  has 
transferred  his  affections  to  another  woman. 
This  throws  her  into  an  agony  of  despair 

52 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


and  longing.  She  recalls  the  days  of  their 
past  happiness  together,  upbraids  him  for  his 
infidelity,  and  closes  with  a  passionate  prayer 
for  his  return.  Panfilo  is  lost.  But  Panfilo 
might  come  again,  and  save  her  from  the 
tomb.  It  is  incredible  that  Boccaccio  should 
bave  insulted  Fiammetta  and  her  husband  by 
publishing  these  revelations,  if  they  told  the 
truth.  It  is  equally  incredible  that  he  should 
have  published  confessions  of  that  nature 
in  her  name,  if  they  were  fictitious.  The 
brutality  of  the  one  course  and  the  indelicacy 
of  the  other  are  alike  inconceivable.  No 
period  of  social  corruption  known  to  us,  not 
even  that  of  Naples  under  Queen  Joanna, 
has  been  so  abandoned  as  to  accept  scorching 
satire  in  lieu  of  compliment.  Boccaccio  could 
not  have  survived  the  husband's  wrath,  the 
wife's  resentment,  for  one  day,  in  Fiammetta  s 
neighbourhood,  after  giving  either  this  truth 
or  this  fiction  to  the  world.  The  dilemma 
I  have  stated  is  so  cogent  that  we  are 
almost  forced  to  choose  one  of  two  hypotheses: 

53 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


either  that  '*La  Fiammetta"  did  not  see  the 
light  till  long  after  the  time  of  its  composition, 
or  else  that  its  attribution  to  Boccaccio  is 
incorrect."^ 

After  stating  these  criticai  difficulties,  there 
remains  no  doubt  that  La  Fiammetta  "  is  a 
very  wonderful  performance.  It  is  the  first 
attempt  in  modem  literature  to  portray  subjec- 
tive  emotion  exterior  to  the  writer.  Since 
Virgil's  Dido,"  since  the  "  Heroidum  Epis- 
tolse"  of  Ovid,  nothing  had  been  essayed  in 
this  region  of  psychological  analysis.  The 
picture  of  an  unholy  and  unhappy  passion, 
blessed  with  fruition  for  one  brief  moment, 
then  cursed  through  months  of  illness  and 
anxiety  with  the  furies  of  vain  desire,  impotent 
jealousy,  and  poignant  recoUection,  is  executed 

*  There  are  some  reasons  for  thinking  that  "  La  Fiam- 
metta "  was  not  written  hy  Boccaccio,  but  rhetorically  for 
Boccaccio  by  some  writer  acquainted  with  the  legend  of  his 
love  for  Fiammetta.  The  MSS.  date  only  from  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  style  is  not  that  of  Boc- 
caccio's  early  manhood  ;  nor  is  it  that  of  the  "  Decameron." 
Could  Alberti  bave  been  the  author  of  "La  Fiammetta "  ? 

54 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

with  incomparable  fulness  of  detail  and  inex- 
haustible  wealth  of  fancy.  The  author  of  this 
extraordinary  piece  proved  himself  not  only  a 
consummate  rhetorician  by  the  skill  with  which 
he  developed  each  moti  ve  furnished  by  the 
situation,  but  also  a  profound  anatomist  of 
feeling  by  the  subtlety  with  which  he  dissected 
a  woman  s  heart  and  laid  bare  the  tortured 
nerves  of  anguish  well-nigh  unendurable.  At 
the  same  time,  La  Fiammetta  "  is  full  of 
poetry.  The  Vision  of  Venus,"  the  invocation 
to  Sleep,  and  the  description  of  summer  on  the 
Bay  of  Baise  relieve  the  sustained  monologue 
of  passionate  complaining,  which  might  other- 
wise  have  been  monotonous.  The  romance 
exercised  a  wide  and  lasting  influence  over 
the  narrative  literature  of  the  Renaissance.  It 
is  so  rich  in  material  that  it  furnished  the 
motives  of  many  tales,  and  the  novelists  of  the 
sixteenth  century  availed  themselves  freely  of 
its  copious  Stores.  If  we  are  right  in  assigning 
"  La  Fiammetta  "  to  Boccaccio,  it  is  clear  that 
he  at  last  had  found  his  proper  instrument  of 

55 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


art.  The  prose  is  no  longer  laboured  and 
affected,  as  in  "  Filocopo  "  and  "  Ameto."  Yet 
it  has  not  attained  that  sparkling  variety,  that 
alternative  of  stately  periods  with  brief  but 
pregnant  touches,  which  reveals  the  perfect 
master  of  style  in  the  Decameron." 


56 


IV 


TJOCCACCIO  may  have  returned  from 
Florence  to  Naples  in  1344  or  1345. 
His  father  s  second  or  third  marriage  probably 
determined  this  change  of  residence.  Joanna, 
who  had  recently  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
paid  him  marked  attention.  According  to  a 
credible  tradition,  he  began  the  "  Decameron  " 
at  her  command.  It  was  during  his  second 
sojourn  at  Naples,  therefore,  that  Boccaccio 
composed  a  large  part  of  those  novels  which 
he  afterwards  combined  into  a  masterpiece 
of  well-proportioned  art.  The  poet  returned 
these  favours  of  the  Queen  with  devotion. 
This,  while  it  revealed  his  warmth  of  heart, 
was  hardly  creditable  to  his  character.  In 
spite  of  her  licentious  life,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that    he    condemned  her   in   a  Latin 

57 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

eclogue  for  the  murder  of  her  husband,  he 
wrote  the  following  panegyric  upon  Joanna  :  ^ 
I  regard  her  not  only  as  an  illustrious 
woman,  conspicuous  for  brilliant  qualities  and 
splendid  fame,  but  also  as  the  special  glory 
of  Italy,  the  like  of  whom  no  other  race 
has  seen."  Meanwhile,  the  whole  of  southern 
Italy  was  torn  in  pieces  by  the  wars  and 
factions  which  followed  the  assassination  of 
Joanna's  consort,  Andrew  of  Hungary.  Laid 
waste  by  savage  troops  from  the  Danube, 
pillaged  by  mercenaries  gathered  from  the 
scum  of  Italian  cities,  afflicted  by  famine  and 
pestilence,  the  kingdom  of  Naples  must  now 
have  lost  that  ideal  charm  which  it  pos- 
sessed  for  Boccaccio's  pleasure-loving  nature 
in  the  past.  In  1349  we  find  him  again  at 
Florence,  which  was  slowly  recovering  from 
the  horrors  of  the  preceding  year.  The  Black 
Death  is  said  to  have  destroyed  100,000 
inhabitants  of  the  Fiorentine  domain — a  truly 
frightful  number  when  we  remember  how 
*  "  De  dar.  mul.,"  cap.  104. 

58 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


narrow  were  its  limits  at  that  period.  Society 
was  disorganised  ;  the  moral  sense  of  the 
people  brutified  ;  government  reduced  to  an- 
archy  by  this  terrific  blow.  It  is  conjectured 
that  Boccaccio's  father,  who  died  about  1348, 
perished  of  the  plague.  Probably  the  poet 
hastened  home  in  order  to  secare  his  inherit- 
ance,  and  to  take  charge  of  his  younger 
brother  Jacopo.  The  fact  that  he  divided 
the  paternal  estate  with  this  brother,  and  that 
he  was  appointed  Jacopo's  guardian,  seems  to 
prove  that  his  relations  to  the  elder  Boccaccio 
remained  satisfactory  up  to  the  latter's  death.^ 
Boccaccio  had  now  reached  the  age  of  thirty- 
six.  His  main  work,  as  a  poet,  had  been 
accomplished,  and  he  was  about  to  enter  on 
fresh  phases  of  activity.  He  must  have  ac- 
quired  considerable  reputation  as  a  man  of 
letters;   for  we  fìnd  him  employed   by  the 

*  Boccaccio  is  mentioned  as  Jacopo's  guardian  in  a  deed 
dated  Jan.  26,  1349  (Fiorentine  style).  In  ali  probability 
Jacopo  was  the  son  o£  Bice,  daughter  o£  Ubardino  de' 
Bostichi,  whom  the  elder  Boccaccio  married  about  1342-3. 
If  his  father  died  of  the  plague,  he  may  have  made  no  will. 

59 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Commonwealth  of  Florence  on  various  public 
missions  during  the  next  sixteen  years. 
Scholars  enjoyed  special  advantages  in  this 
respect  at  the  commencement  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Latin  being  the  language  of  State- 
documents  and  diplomacy,  they  were  engaged 
as  secretaries,  envoys,  and  orators  on  cere- 
monial  occasions.  I  shall  not  dwell  in  detail 
upon  Boccaccio's  missions  to  Romagna  and 
Ravenna,  to  the  Court  of  Tyrol  and  the  Pope. 
He  does  not  appear  to  have  been  entrusted 
with  business  of  any  great  politicai  import- 
ance,  and  there  are  signs  that  he  was  not  a 
very  skilful  negotiator.  But  one  embassy  of 
a  more  private  character  arrests  attention, 
since  it  brought  the  two  most  eminent  men  of 
letters  in  Europe  at  that  moment  into  relations 
alike  flattering  and  honourable.  I  allude  to 
a  Commission  from  the  Signoria  of  Florence 
given  to  Boccaccio  in  Aprii  1351.  He  was 
sent  to  Padua,  in  order  to  inform  Petrarch 
that  the  sentence  of  exile  under  which,  as  the 
son   of  a  banished  citizen,  he  had  hitherto 

60 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

been  living,  and  the  sequestration  of  his 
hereditary  property,  from  which  he  had  been 
suffering,  would  be  removed,  provided  he 
returned  to  Florence  and  lent  his  powers  of 
scholarship  and  rhetoric  to  the  government 
of  his  native  city. 

There  is  some  difficulty  about  deciding  the 
exact  year  in  which  Boccaccio  first  set  eyes  on 
Petrarch.  His  biographers  bave  conjectured 
that  he  may  bave  witnessed  the  celebrated 
examination  in  poetry  and  rhetoric  before 
King  Robert  of  Anjou,  which  quaUfied 
Petrarch  to  receive  the  laurei  crown  at  Rome. 
This  took  place  in  the  spring  of  1341,  and 
the  scheme  I  bave  adopted  for  determining 
the  chronology  of  Boccaccio's  early  manhood 
renders  his  presence  in  Naples  upon  that 
occasion  improbable.  We  know,  however,  for 
certain,  that  he  entertained  an  enthusiastic 
admiration  for  the  leading  scholar  and  poet  of 
his  days  from  adolescence  onward.  In  the 
autumn  of  1350,  when  Petrarch  came  for  the 
first  time  to  Florence  upon  a  journey  to  the 

61 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

jubilee  in  Rome,  Boccaccio  entertained  him  in 
his  house.  Then  began  a  friendship  fruitful 
in  results  for  Europe  and  glorious  in  the 
annais  of  world-literature.  Petrarch  was  the 
elder  by  thirteen  years.  Boccaccio  addressed 
him,  with  the  tact  of  true  devotion,  as  master, 
friend,  philosopher,  and  guide.  Petrarch's 
sensitive  and  somewhat  egoistic  nature  genially 
expanded  to  the  man  in  whom  he  recognised 
his  only  intellectual  equal.  In  his  corre- 
spondence  with  Boccaccio — a  precious  series 
of  documents  for  the  biography  of  both  illus- 
trious  poets — we  detect  a  note  of  realìty,  which 
is  lacking  in  the  letters  addressed  to  Lselius, 
Simonides,  and  other  shadowy  personages  of 
his  inner  circle.  When  they  first  met  in  1350, 
the  character  of  both  was  formed.  Nothing 
could  alter  Petrarch,  who  pursued  a  singular 
self-chosen  course  from  boyhood  to  old  age. 
Boccaccio  had  learned  to  estimate  his  powers. 
Regretting  the  untoward  circumstances  which 
hindered  him  from  becoming  an  accomplished 
scholar  or  conspicuous  poet,  he  broke,  as  we 

62 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

bave  seen,  a  new  path  for  himself  in  literature. 
Step-mother  fortune  led  him,  almost  against 
bis  will,  to  create  Italian  prose  and  to  invent 
tbose  many  forms  of  art  wbich  mediated 
between  bumanism  and  the  culture  of  bis 
nation.  Tbe  Decameron  "  was  already  in 
existence.  Tberefore  Petrarch's  influence  could 
not  interfere  with  bis  disciple's  development 
But  it  strengthened  bis  character,  added 
seriousness  to  bis  conception  of  literature, 
raised  bim  in  bis  own  esteem,  and  gave  a 
fresb  direction  to  bis  intellectual  energies. 
After  tbe  formation  of  tbeir  friendsbip,  wbicb 
continued  unbroken  until  Petrarcb's  deatb  one 
year  before  bis  comrade's,  Boccaccio  devoted 
bimself  witb  earnestness  to  scholarsbip.  His 
encyclopsedic  works  on  mytbology,  geograpby, 
and  bistory,  were  compiled  in  tbe  twenty 
years  wbicb  followed  1350.  We  do  not  know 
tbeir  dates  for  certain.  But  tbe  Genealogia 
Deorum,"  the  treatise  "  De  Mortibus,'*  etc,  the 
biographical  collections  issued  under  tbe  titles 
of    De  casibus  virorum  illustrium  "  and  "  De 

63 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

claris  mulieribus,"  belong  undoubtedly  to  this 
period.    In  the  evolution  of  humanism  they 
bave  a  distinct  value.    Without  being  monu- 
ments  of  scientific  philology,  betraying  as  they 
do  the  talent  of  a  dilettante  rather  than  a 
thorough   student,    these  works    of  patient 
industry  performed  a  useful,  nay,  a  necessary 
service  in  the  Revival  of  Learning.  They  were 
the  first  attempts  at  what  we  should  now 
cali  Dictionaries  of  Mythology,  Geography, 
and  Biography,  compiled  as  introductions  to 
classical  erudition.     They  placed  text-books, 
admirable  for  the  state  of  knowledge  at  that 
time,  within  the   reach   of  men  who  were 
destined  to  carry  the   Renaissance  forward. 
The  acquaintance  with  antique  authors,  the 
Stores   of   digested    knowledge  revealed  in 
them,  are  alike  remarkable.   How  many  MSS., 
copied  for  the  most  part  with  bis  own  band, 
must  Boccaccio  bave  studied  and  re-studied 
before  he  attained   to  the   result  displayed 
before  us  in  those  bulky  volumes  !    He  knew 
no  royal  roads  to  learning.    He  was  making 

64 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

them  for  others.  And  how  genial,  if  often 
incorrect  and  always  rude  in  style,  is  their 
manner  of  exposition  !  Criticism  was  then  in 
its  infancy  ;  and  Boccaccio,  by  the  temper  of 
his  mind,  was  nothing  less  than  criticai.  Con- 
sequently,  scholars  of  the  present  day  can 
afford  to  look  down  on  them  .with  con- 
temptuous  condescension.  But  the  case  was 
very  different  with  Boccaccio's  contemporaries. 
F.  Villani  and  Domenico  of  Arezzo  have  no 
word  to  say  about  his  Decameron  "  and 
Italian  poems.  They  laud  him  to  the  skies 
for  these  encyclopaedic  compilations.  Monu- 
ments  indeed  are  they  of  self-sacrificing  labour 
and  passionate  enthusiasm  in  the  early  dawn 
and  twilight  of  modem  culture. 

The  composition  of  these  books  was  by 
no  means  the  last  or  the  greatest  service 
rendered  by  Boccaccio  to  the  New  Learning. 
At  Petrarch's  suggestion,  he  undertook  to 
acquire  Greek  ;  and  Europe  must  be  ever 
grateful  to  him  as  the  inaugurator  of  Greek 
studies.    A  Calabrian,  named  Leontius  Pilatus, 

65  E 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

who  called  himself  a  Greek  in  Italy  and  an 
Italian  at  Constantinople,  carne,  perhaps  at 
Boccaccio's  invitation,  to  Florence  in  1360. 
Though  he  was  a  man  of  repulsive  exterior 
and  intolerable  conversation,  Boccaccio  received 
him  into  his  own  house,  putting  up  with  every 
inconvenience,  and  incurring  considerale  ex- 
pense  in  order  to  obtain  the  precious  posses- 
sion  of  the  Greek  language,  which  Leontius 
was  able  to  communicate.  Under  his  roof  at 
Florence  the  two  men  began  to  translate 
Homer  into  Latin.  The  version  which  Leon- 
tius dictated  and  Boccaccio  reduced  to  lite- 
rary  form  is  a  very  poor  performance.  Yet 
Petrarch,  who  said  that  Homer  in  the  originai 
was  dumb  to  him  while  he  was  deaf  to 
Homer,  welcomed  it  with  reverence.  It  intro- 
duced  the  Father  of  Poetry  to  his  eager 
admirers  in  the  modem  world,  and  stimu- 
lated  a  curiosity  which  has  not  yet  been 
satiated. 

Before  quitting  this  period  of  Boccaccio's 
life,  it  is  needful  to  glance  at  one  of  its  less 

66 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

agreeable  episodes.  At  some  time  when  he 
was  well  on  in  the  forties,  he  paid  his  ad- 
dresses  to  a  Fiorentine  widow.  She  repelled 
them  with  contempt  and  insult.  He  indulged 
his  vengeance  in  a  spiteful  satire,  entitled, 
Il  Corbaccio,"  or  the  Laberinto  d'Amore." 
It  is  written  in  vigorous  Italian,  with  a  male- 
volence  and  concentrated  force  of  sarcasm 
which  must  bave  bitten  like  vitriol  into  its 
victim.  Not  only  is  the  lady  herself  reviled, 
but  the  whole  sex  is  painted  in  revolting 
colours.  We  could  fancy  that  certain  passages 
had  been  penned  by  a  disappointed  monk. 
They  bave  the  acrimony  of  jaundiced  impo- 
tence.  Though  the  "  Corbaccio  "  is  in  tone 
unworthy  of  its  author,  it  bore  fruits  in  the 
literature  of  the  next  century.  Alberti's  Satires 
upon  women  are  rhetorical  amplifications  of 
themes  suggested  by  its  invectives.  Turning 
from  this  disgusting  and  profoundly  immoral 
composition,  it  is  pleasant  to  find  Boccaccio 
sending  a  copy  of  the  Divine  Comedy  "  to 
Petrarch.    He  had  transcribed  the  poem  with 

67 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

his  own  hand,  and  accompanied  it  with  a 
letter,  recommending  its  perusal  to  his  friend. 
Petrarch  was  so  sensitively  vain  that  Boccaccio 
ran  no  little  risk  of  stirring  his  resentment. 
Yet  he  contri ved  to  humour  the  great  man's 
self  -  conceìt  with  such  delicate  tact  that 
Petrarch  graciously  accepted  the  gift  and 
acknowledged  it  in  a  memorable  epistle. 
This  happened  in  1359. 

Two  years  after  that  date,  in  the  summer 
of  1361,  a  singular  event  happened,  which 
throws  interesting  light  upon  Boccaccio's 
character.  A  Carthusian  monk,  named  Pietro 
de'  Petroni,  died  in  the  preceding  May  at 
Siena.  He  was  eminent  for  piety,  and  on 
his  death-bed  he  claimed  to  have  had  special 
intimations  regarding  some  of  his  most  illus- 
trious  contemporaries.  Heaven  and  Hell  were 
opened  to  his  eyes  in  vision.  He  saw  the 
bliss  of  saints,  the  torments  of  the  damned. 
When  he  awoke  from  this  ecstasy,  he  com- 
manded  a  brother  of  the  order  and  his  own 
disciple  to  carry  a  message  to  certain  persons, 

68 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

whose  sinful  ways  of  life  would  bring  them 
to  eternai  ruin  unless  they  reperiteci  in  due 
time.  Among  them  was  Boccaccio.  Accord- 
ingly,  Gioachino  Ciani — such  was  the  name 
of  Pietro  de'  Petroni's  ambassador — carne  to 
him  in  Florence,  and  communicated  the  terri- 
fying  message.  It  produced  a  sudden  and 
overwhelming  effect.  In  his  first  agitation 
Boccaccio  determined  to  abandon  study,  to 
give  up  his  library,  to  obliterate,  so  far  as 
in  him  lay,  his  light  and  amatorious  works 
of  poetry  and  fiction,  finally  to  make  himself 
a  monk  or  enter  into  priest's  orders.  Fortu- 
nately,  before  committing  himself  to  ali  or 
any  of  these  steps,  he  wrote  to  consult 
Petrarch.  An  answer,  firm  in  tone  and  sound 
in  judgment,  combining  the  truest  wisdom 
with  the  tenderest  sympathy,  arrived  from 
Padua.  Petrarch,  with  the  humane  sense 
which  distinguished  him  in  that  age  of  super- 
stition  and  credulity,  argued  against  the 
authority  of  death-bed  intimations.  He  ad- 
mitted  that  it  would    indeed   be  well  for 

69 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Boccaccio  to  increase  in  piety  and  seriousness 
with  his  advancing  years.  At  the  same  time 
he  pointed  out  that  the  pursuits  of  poetry 
and  literature,  in  which  his  Hfe  had  been 
employed,  were  by  no  means  incompatible 
with  sincere  rehgion.  This  advice,  at  once 
consoling  and  admonitory,  coming  from  a 
man  of  Petrarch's  known  ascetic  bent,  acted 
like  a  tonic  on  his  friend.  Boccaccio  retained 
his  library  and  continued  his  studies  in  philo- 
logy.  So  far  as  we  have  certain  knowledge, 
he  did  not  take  religious  vows  of  any  kind, 
although  a  report  was  current  among  his 
contemporaries  that  he  had  entered  the 
Carthusian  Order.  But  from  the  date  of  this 
so-called  conversion,  he  became  a  sadder  and 
a  wiser  man.  He  besought  his  friends  to 
abstain  from  the  reading  of  his  own  "  De- 
cameron," ^  and  no  doubt  he  bitterly  deplored 
the  profligate  and  odious  Corbaccio."  Poetry 
was  over   for  him.     But  he  preserved  his 

*  See  his  letter  to  Maghinardo  de'  Cavalcanti,  written 
perhaps  in  the  autumn  of  1372. 

70 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

interest  in  scholarship,  and  worked  assiduously 
at  this  branch  of  literature. 

In  the  same  year,  1361,  Boccaccio  received 
an  invitation  to  Naples  from  his  old  friend 
and  patron  Niccolo  Acciainoli,  now  one  of  the 
most  powerful  princes  of  that  realm.  He 
accepted  it,  and  journeyed  thither  with 
his  brother  Jacopo.  But  the  entertainment 
assigned  him  at  Niccolo  s  orders,  by  no  means 
corresponded  with  his  expectations.  It  appears 
that  the  great  man  had  begged  him  to  com- 
pose his  life,  and  that  Boccaccio  refused  the 
office.  This  accounts  for  the  frigid  greeting 
and  the  sordid  hospitality  he  met  with.  We 
possess  a  wonderful  description  of  his  misery 
at  Naples  in  the  form  of  a  letter  addressed 
to  Niccolo's  secretary,  Francesco  de  Nelli. 
This  composition,  like  the  Corbaccio,"  proves 
that  Boccaccio  had  the  gifts  of  a  great  and  for- 
midable  satirist.  It  paints  the  weaker  sides  of 
the  Grand  Seneschal's  character  with  trenchant 
force  and  evident  veracity.  If  half  what  the 
writer  says  be  true,  regarding  his  scurvy  treat- 

71 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

ment  in  the  Neapolitan  hovel  allotted  to  him, 
his  resentment  was  assuredly  justified.  Yet 
there  is  a  kind  of  ignobility  in  his  complaining, 
a  something  which  reminds  us  of  the  inevitable 
old  bachelor,  the  self-important  man  of  letters, 
and  the  confirmed  comedian,  in  its  tone. 
Dante  tasting  the  salt  of  Can  Grande's  bread, 
Johnson  turned  away  from  Lord  Chesterfield's 
door,  both  felt  and  spoke  very  differently. 
Here,  as  in  so  many  ways,  Boccaccio  showed 
himself  a  true  child  of  the  Renaissance.  He 
was  essentially  bourgeots,  occupied  with  little 
things  and  and  careful  about  trifles.  His 
personal  pettishness  enfeebled  the  masterly 
strokes  of  his  satire.  Looking  across  the  next 
two  hundred  years,  when  the  Renaissance  was 
well-nigh  over,  we  find  the  same  fretful  tone, 
the  same  whining,  the  same  brooding  over 
pitiful  affronts,  in  Tasso. 

I  shall  not  follo w  the  events  of  Boccaccio's 
career  with  minuteness  through  the  next  ten 
years.  We  hear  of  missions  to  Urban  V.  at 
Avignon  and  Rome,  of  a  long  delightful  resi- 

72 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

dence  with  Petrarch  on  the  Riva  degli  Schiavoni 
at  Venice,  and  of  another  visit  to  Naples  in 
1371.  Niccolo  Acciaiuoli  was  dead  and  buried 
in  his  sumptuous  certosa  near  the  walls  of 
Florence.  So  Boccaccio  had  no  insulting 
patron  and  no  vindicative  enemy  to  fear. 
Like  a  ghost,  he  wandered  once  more  and  for 
the  last  time  through  those  enchanting  scenes 
from  which  his  inspiration  had  been  drawn  in 
youth.  We  may  perhaps  refer  to  this  occasion 
a  story  of  Boccaccio's  visit  to  Monte  Cassino, 
told  by  his  disciple  Benvenuto  da  Imola  in  the 
Commentary  upon  Dante. 

With  the  advance  of  old  age,  Boccaccio 
suffered  severely  from  bodily  afflictions.  They 
were  as  numerous  and  as  tormenting  as  those 
described  by  Browning  in  The  Grammarian's 
Funeral."  Yet,  like  Browning's  Grammarian, 
he  continued  to  be  brave  and  arduous  in 
study.  When  he  had  reached  the  age  of 
sixty,  that  is  to  say,  in  1373,  some  Fiorentine 
citizens  received  permission  from  the  Govern- 
ment to  found  a  chair  for  the  exposition  of  the 

73 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

Divine  Comedy."  Boccaccio  was  appointed 
the  first  Reader.  He  began  to  lecture  in 
the  Church  of  San  Stefano  upon  the  2^rd 
of  October,  and  discharged  the  functions  of 
his  chair  until  the  spring  of  1375.  The 
*'Comento  Sopra  Dante,"  a  voluminous  work, 
displaying  a  large  amount  of  miscellaneous 
learning,  was  the  fruit  of  this  activitiy.  It 
is  divided  into  fifty-nine  lectures,  and  is  carried 
down  to     Inferno,"  xvii.  17. 

Having  considered  Boccaccio  as  poet, 
novelist  and  scholar,  we  have  now  to  regard 
him  from  a  different  point  of  view.  His 
originality  and  openness  of  mind  to  ali  great 
things  in  literature  were  no  less  conspicuous 
in  the  enthusiasm  he  felt  for  Dante  than  in 
his  reverence  for  Petrarch  and  application  to 
Greek  studies.  This  enthusiasm  contributed 
much  to  propagating  an  interest  in  the  Divine 
Comedy."  We  are  even  jiistified  in  surmising 
that,  but  for  Boccaccio's  influence,  the  chair 
which  he  filled  so  honourably  might  not  have 
been  founded.    He  certainly  professed  a  cult 

74 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

for  Dante  long  before  that  epoch.  I  have 
already  mentioned  his  gift  of  the  "  Divine 
Comedy"  to  Petrarch  ;  and  we  must  refer  his 
*'Vita  di  Dante  "to  some  comparati  vely  early 
period  of  his  life — perhaps  to  the  year  1350, 
when  the  Florentines  sent  him  to  Ravenna 
with  a  present  of  ten  golden  florins  for  the 
poet's  daughter.  This  Life,  as  he  informs 
US  in  the  preface,  was  intended  as  a  slight 
amend  to  Dante's  memory  for  his  exile  and 
for  the  lack  of  any  monument  in  Florence. 
The  honours  which  the  Commonwealth  refused 
to  her  most  noble  son,  he  wished  to  supply 
with  his  poor  faculty  of  writing.  He  chose 
Italian  for  the  purpose,  instead  of  Latin,  in 
order  that  his  panegyric  might  reach  the 
ears  of  the  unlettered  vulgar.  Such  was 
Boccaccio  s  inducement  to  compose  the  "  Life 
of  Dante,"  a  work  which  he  doubtless  did 
not  fail  to  circuiate.  The  book  has  no  criticai 
or  historical  value  ;  but  it  presents  many 
points  of  interest.  Like  everything  written 
by  Boccaccio,  it  is  eminently  readable,  in  spite 

75 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

of  the  heterogeneous  learning  with  which  the 
narrative  is  weighted.  It  reveals  the  heartiest 
veneration  for  ali  things  noble  and  praise- 
worthy  in  the  realm  of  literature.  Its  author's 
admiration  for  the  divine  poet  is  sincere  and 
ungrudging.  Yet  it  betrays  an  astonishing 
want  of  sympathy  with  Dantes  character, 
and  transforms  the  sublime  romance  of  the 
"  Vita  Nuova  "  into  a  commonplace  novel  of 
sentiment.  Boccaccio  is  unable  to  comprehend 
how  even  Dante  could  have  fallen  in  love 
with  Beatrice  at  the  age  of  nine.  He  con- 
jectures  that  the  sweet  season  of  May,  the 
good  wines  and  delicate  meats  of  the  Porti- 
nari  banquet,  ali  the  sensuous  delights  of  a 
Fiorentine  festival,  turned  the  boy  into  a 
man.  Dante  spoke  of  Beatrice  as  the 
**youngest  of  the  angels."  Boccaccio  draws 
a  lively  picture  of  this  angel  in  the  flesh,  as 
he  imagined  her.  In  his  portrait  there  is 
less  of  the  angelic  than  the  carnai  nature 
visible.  Beatrice  becomes  one  of  the  beauties 
of  his  own  prose  fictions.    Ali  this  he  does  in 

76 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

absolute  good  faith,  with  the  honest  desire  to 
exalt  Dante  above  every  poet,  and  to  spread 
abroad  the  fame  of  his  illustrious  life.  But 
the  founder  of  Renaissance  art  was  incapable 
of  comprehending  the  real  temper  of  the  man 
he  deified.  Between  him  and  the  enthusiasms 
of  the  Middle  Ages  a  ninefold  Styx  already 
rolled  its  waves. 

The  **Commentary  on  the  Divine  Comedy" 
was  Boccaccio's  last  considerable  work.  In 
1374  a  severe  blow  depressed  his  spirits, 
shaken  by  old  age  and  illness.  This  was  the 
news  of  Petrarch's  death.  Perhaps  he  wrote 
the  "  Urbano,"  a  simple  and  harmless  tale,  to 
distract  his  mind  from  grief.  But  the  genuine- 
ness  of  this  work  is  subject  to  considerable 
doubt.  Anyhow  it  was  not  long  before  he 
received  the  summons  to  follow  his  friend 
upon  the  journey  from  which  none  return.  He 
died  at  Certaldo  upon  the  2ist  of  December, 
1375,  and  was  buried  in  the  church  there. 


77 


V 


^TT^HE  pian  of  this  study  made  me  defer  ali 
^  notices  of  the  "  Decameron  "  for  its 
conclusion  ;  nor  do  I  intend  to  enter  with  par- 
ticularity  into  antiquarian  problems  regarding 
Boccaccio*s  masterpiece. 

He  was  fond  of  giving  his  books  clumsily 
compounded  Greek  names.  Thus  we  bave 
"  Filostrato  "  (^iXav  and  arparoo),  Filocopo  " 
{(j>i\eiv  and  KÓirog),  Teseide  "  (Gi^tnjtc).  It  is 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  title  Decameron  " 
(Sfjca  riiJLÉpai)  was  invented  by  himself.  The 
sub-title,  Il  Principe  Galeotto/'  has  beeninter- 
preted  to  mean,  The  Prince  of  Pandars,  from 
a  famous  line  in  Dante's  episode  of  "  Francesca 
da  Rimini."  *  That  Boccaccio  did  not  invent 
this  sub-title,  can  be  well  imagi  ned.    Yet,  in 

*  "  Inferno,"  v.  137. 

78 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

his  commentary  on  the  line  to  which  I  have 
alluded, 

Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scisse, 

he  explained  how  Galeotto  "  carne  to  be 
synonymous  with  go-between  or  pandar  ;  ^  and 
in  a  letter  to  Maghinardo  de'  Cavalcanti,  cited 
above,  he  avowed  his  belief  that  the  De- 
cameron "  might  lead  women  astray  by  its 
seductions. 

Great  pains  have  been  taken  to  investigate 
the  sources  used  by  Boccaccio  in  the  compo- 
sition  of  his  tales.  Men  like  Landau  in 
Germany  and  Bartoli  in  Italy  have  ransacked 
the  Stores  of  Indian,  Arabie,  Byzantine, 
French,  Provengal,  Hebrew,  and  Spanish 
fables,  with  the  view  of  tracing  resemblances 
between  the  Decameron  "  and  pre-existing 
literature  of  various  sorts.  It  has  been  shown 
by  these  researches  that  very  few  of  Boc- 
caccio's  stories  are  originai,  in  the  sense  of 
having  been  invented  by  himself.  Like 
Shakespeare,  he  used  materials  ready  to  his 

*  "  Montier,"  vol.xi.  p.  6i. 
79 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

band,  wherever  he  found  something  to  the 
purpose  of  his  art.  But  scholarship  of  this 
sort  has  introduced  a  somewhat  false  note 
into  our  criticism  of  the  subject.  We  are, 
as  it  were,  invited  to  believe  that  Boccaccio 
possessed  a  polyglot  library  of  fiction,  which 
he  consulted  in  the  course  of  composition. 
The  truth  is  that  story-telling  was  a  favourite 
pastime  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  that  very  few 
good  stories  are  new.  From  Hindostan, 
from  Baghdad,  from  Greek  and  Roman  books 
on  history,  from  the  folk-lore  of  Teutonic 
and  Celtic  races,  from  a  thousand-and-one 
sources,  anecdotes  were  freely  taken  up,  which 
passed  into  the  common  substance  of  the 
mediaeval  mind.  They  circulated  from  lip  to 
lip  between  the  Ganges  and  the  Seine.  They 
were  the  property  of  everybody.  Thus  the 
learned  investigations  to  which  I  bave  re- 
ferred,  are  interesting,  because  they  show  how 
large  and  various  a  stock  of  stories  were 
current  in  the  days  before  Boccaccio  wrote. 
But  such  researches  bave  small  importante 

80 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


for  the  criticism  of  the  Decameron  "  as  a 
work  of  art.  They  only  prove  his  wide 
acquaintance  with  the  tales  of  many  lands, 
as  these  formed  elements  of  social  culture 
common  to  his  race. 

The  same  line  of  treatment  might  be  adopted 
with  regard  to  the  charge  of  plagiarism  from 
North  French  tale-tellers,  which  has  been 
brought  against  Boccaccio  by  sensitive  French 
patriots.  It  is  true  that  he  borro wed  largely 
from  the  fabliaux  ;  and  what  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  he  adopted  the  style  of  narration 
in  use  among  Trouvères,  Ménestrels  and 
Jongleurs.  Such  professors  of  the  arts  of 
entertainment  pervaded  Europe,  and  un- 
doubtedly  haunted  the  Angevine  Court  at 
Naples.  An  artist  of  Boccaccio's  stamp,  born 
to  excellence,  appreciative  of  the  slightest 
hints  of  mastery  in  the  trade  he  had  adopted, 
certainly  learned  much  from  these  men.  He 
learned  from  them  in  the  same  way  as  Mozart 
learned  from  fashionable  composers  of  Italian 
opera.    But  when  we  compare  their  work  with 

8t  f 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

his,  the  charge  of  plagiarism  becomes  almost 
comic.  Comic  indeed  is  not  the  word  for  it. 
I  would  rather  say  that  the  man  who  makes 
such  charges,  writes  himself  down  thereby  a 
dullard  in  the  art  of  criticism.  He  is  in- 
capable  of  perceiving  the  bottomless  gulf 
which  yawns  between  old  French  fabliaux^ 
humoroiis,  obscene,  disconnected,  with  blunt 
native  glimpses  into  human  character,  and 
that  stately  art-work  which  we  cali  "Deca- 
meron," completely  finished,  fair  in  ali  its 
parts,  appropriately  framed,  subordinated  to 
one  principle  of  style,  with  the  master's 
Shakespearian  grasp  on  ali  heights  and  depths, 
on  the  kernel  and  the  superficies,  the  pomp 
and  misery,  the  pleasures  and  the  pangs  of 
mortai  life. 

Where  Boccaccio  found  his  stories,  matters 
little.  How  he  formed  his  style  of  narrative, 
matters  equally  little.  These  questions  have 
their  antiquarian  interest  indeed;  and  at 
leisure  moments  readers  of  the  "  Decameron  " 
would  do  well  to  consider  them.    But  the  critic 

82 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

has  to  avoid  such  side-issues,  after  mastering 
their  points  and  giving  them  due  weight.  He 
must  remind  people  that  the  real  question  is, 
not  where  Boccaccio  found  his  stories,  nor 
how  he  acquired  his  style,  but  whether  he 
used  those  stories  and  employed  that  style  in 
a  way  to  distinguish  him  from  ali  his  prede- 
cessors,  and  to  make  the  Decameron  "  a 
monumentai  work  of  modem  art. 

Comparing  Boccaccio,  not  with  previous 
mediseval  story -tellers,  who  are  nowhere  in 
the  reckoning,  but  with  himself  as  literary 
craftsman,  we  pronounce  that  in  the  "  Deca- 
meron" he  accomplished  that  to  which  his 
earlier  writings  of  every  sort  in  Italian  poetry 
and  prose  had  been  but  preludes.  These 
essays  of  his  immaturity  were  marked  by  mis- 
directed  energy,  by  euphuism  sprung  from  a 
mixed  literary  impulse,  by  want  of  proportion, 
by  declamatory  monologue  directed  towards 
the  author's  self  as  audience.  The  Deca- 
meron "  emerges  into  the  clear  atmosphere  of 
perfected  objective  art.    We  do  not  feel  the 

83 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

author's   subjectivity,    his   longings   and  his 
disappointments.     He  paints  actual  men  and 
women,    dealing   with   them   humorously  or 
sympathetically,    exhibiting   their  nobleness, 
bringing  their  foibles  and   deformities  into 
relief,  even  as  light  falling  round  an  object  i 
does.    He  has  ceased  to  declaim.    There  is 
no  baste,  no  disproportion  in  the  work.  Each 
tale  is  told  in  its  appropriate  manner  ;  and  ali 
the  tales  are  built  into  a  stately  palace-house, 
vvherein   the   mind   of  man   may   walk  for 
solace  or  instruction  through  well-planned  and 
spacious  chambers.    The  style,  though  arti- 
ficial,  has  disengaged  itself  from  pedantries 
and  hesitations.     Handled  as  it  is  handled 
here,  Boccaccio's  Italian  prose  proclaims  its 
fitness  to  be  used  for  every  purpose,  serious 
or  gay,    coarse  or   sentimental,   elegiac  or 
satirical,  descriptive  or  analytical,  rhetorical  or 
epigrammatic.    Changing,    according  to  the 
master's  mood,  within  the  bounds  of  equable 
and  polished  diction,  it  is  suited   to  every 
whim  or  exigency  of  stylistic  utterance. 

84 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

The  "  Decameron  "  has  been  calied  the 
Commedia  Umana."  This  title  is  appro- 
priate, not  merely  because  the  book  portrays 
human  life  from  a  comic  rather  than  a  serious 
point  of  view,  but  also  because  it  forms 
the  direct  antithesis  of  Dante's  ''Commedia 
Divina."  The  great  poem  and  the  great 
prose  fiction  of  the  fourteenth  century 
are  opposed  to  each  other  as  Masque  and 
Anti-masque.  The  world  of  the  "  Decameron  " 
is  not  an  inverted  world,  Hke  that  of  Aristo- 
phanes.  It  does  not  antithesise  Dante's  world 
by  turning  it  upside  down.  It  is  simply  the 
same  world  surveyed  from  another  side, 
unaltered,  uninverted,  but  viewed  in  the 
superficies,  presented  in  the  concrete.  Dante, 
in  the  "Divine  Comedy,"  attempted  a  revela- 
tion  of  what  underlies  appearances  and  gives 
them  their  eternai  value.  He  treated  of 
human  nature  in  relation  to  God,  of  life  upon 
this  earth  in  relation  to  life  beyond  the  grave. 
Boccaccio  deals  with  appearances,  and  does 
not  seek  to  penetrate  below  experience.  He 

85 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

paints  the  world  as  world,  the  flesh  as  flesh, 
nature  as  nature,  without  suggesting  the 
question  whether  there  be  a  spiritual  order. 
Human  life  is  regarded  by  him  as  the  play- 
thing  of  fortune,  humour,  appetite,  caprice. 
Dante  saw  the  world  in  the  mirror  of  his 
soul.  Boccaccio  looked  upon  it  with  his 
naked  eyes  ;  yet  poet  and  novelist  dealt  with 
the  same  stuff  of  humanity,  and  displayed 
equal  comprehensiveness  in  treating  it. 

The  description  of  the  Piagne  at  Florence 
which  introduces  the  Decameron,"  has  more 
than  a  merely  artistic  appropriateness.  Boc- 
caccio's  taste  might  be  questioned  for  bringing 
that  group  of  pleasure-seeking  men  and 
maidens  into  contrast  with  the  horrors  of  the 
stricken  city.  Florence  crowded  with  corpses, 
echoing  to  the  shrieks  of  delirium  and  the 
hoarse  cries  of  body-buriers,  forms  a  back- 
ground to  the  blooming  garden,  where  birds 
sing,  and  lovers  sit  by  fountains  in  the  shade, 
laughing  or  weeping  as  the  spirit  of  each  tale 
constrains  their  sympathy.    Remembering  that 

86 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

these  glad  people  bave  shunned  the  miseries 
which  weigh  upon  their  fellow-creatures,  our 
first  impulse  is  to  shrink  with  loathing  from 
their  callousness.  But  the  reflection  foUows, 
that  black  Death  is  hovering  near  them  too, 
and  may  descend  with  sweeping  scythe  at  any 
moment  on  their  paradise.^  This  introduction, 
therefore,  suggests  a  moral  for  Boccaccio's 
Human  Comedy."  The  brilliant  masquerade 
of  earthly  life  which  he  has  painted  with  such 
inexhaustible  variety,  has  the  grave  behind  it 
and  before  it,  and  Death  is  ever  passing  to  and 
fro  among  the  dancers.  Meanwhile  men  eat 
and  drink,  sing  and  play^  sleep  at  nightfall  and 
rise  refreshed  in  dewy  morning,  for  new  plea- 
sures,  unmindful  of  the  hospital,  the  battle- 
field,  the  charnel-house.  Boccaccio  was  too 
great  an  artist  to  point  this  moral  in  a  work  of 
mirth  and  relaxation.  There  it  is,  however, 
like  the  grinning  skeleton  who  threads  the 
mazes  of  a  Danse  Macabre. 

*  Orcagna,  or  whoever  else  painted  the  "  Triumph  of 
Death  "  in  the  Pisan  Campo  Santo,  seems  to  have  felt  this. 

87 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 


The  description  of  the  Plague  has  another 
undesigned  significance.  A  Fiorentine  chroni- 
cler  of  those  times,  Matteo  Villani,  dates  the 
progressive  deterioration  of  manners  and  the 
politicai  anarchy  which  followed  from  the 
Black  Death  of  1348.  The  Plague  was,  there- 
fore,  an  outward  sign,  if  not  the  efficient  cause, 
of  those  moral  and  social  changes  which  the 
Decameron"  immortalised  in  literature.  It 
was  the  historical  landmark  between  two  ages, 
dividing  mediaeval  from  Renaissance  Italy. 
The  cynicism,  liberated  inthatperiod  of  terror, 
lawlessness  and  sudden  death,  assumed  in 
Boccaccio's  romance  a  beautiful  and  graceful 
aspect.  His  art  softened  its  harsh  and  vulgar 
outlines,  giving  it  that  air  of  genial  indulgence 
which  distinguished  Italian  society  throughout 
the  heyday  of  the  Renaissance. 

Boccaccio  selects  seven  ladies  of  ages  vary- 
ing  from  eighteen  to  twenty-eight,  and  three 
men,  the  youngest  of  whom  is  twenty-five. 
Having  formed  this  company,  he  transports 
them  to  a  villa  two  miles  from  the  city,  where 

88 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

he  provides  them  with  a  train  of  serving-men 
and  waiting-women,  and  surrounds  them  with 
the  delicacies  of  mediaeval  luxury.  Their 
daily  doings  forni  the  framework  in  which 
the  stories  of  the  Decameron  "  are  set.  He 
is  careful  to  remind  us  that,  though  there 
were  lovers  in  that  band  of  friends,  no 
stain  defiled  the  honour  of  the  company  ;  " 
yet  these  unblemished  maidens  Hsten  with 
laughter  and  a  passing  blush  to  words  and 
things  which  outrage  our  present  sense  of 
decency.  Nothing  is  more  striking  in  the 
Decameron  "  than  the  refinement  of  the 
framework  contrasted  with  the  coarseness  of 
the  pictures  which  it  frames.  I  do  not  think 
that  Boccaccio  violated  the  truth  of  fact  for 
the  purpose  of  his  art.  Plenty  of  proof  exists 
that  the  best  society  of  the  period  found  en-  ^. 
tertainment  in  discussing  themes  which  would 
now  be  scarcely  tolerated  in  a  barrack. 

The  Hght  but  remorseless  satire  of  the 
Decameron  "  spares  none  of  the  ideals  of 
the  age.     Ali  the  mediaeval  enthusiasms  are 

89 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

reviewed  and  criticised  in  the  spirit  of  a 
Fiorentine  citizen.  It  is  as  though  the  bour- 
geoisy  not  content  with  having  made  nobility 
a  crime,  were  bent  upon  extinguishing  its 
essence.  Indeed,  the  advent  of  the  bourgeois 
is  the  most  significant  note  of  the  times  to 
which  Boccaccio  belonged.  Agilulf  vulgarises 
the  chivalrous  conception  of  love  ennobling 
men  of  low  estate,  by  showing  how  a  groom, 
whose  heart  is  set  upon  a  queen,  avails  him- 
self  of  opportunity.  Tancredi  burlesques  the 
knightly  reverence  for  stainless  scutcheons 
by  the  extravagance  of  his  revenge.  The 
sanctity  of  the  "  Thebaid,"  that  ascetic  dream 
of  purity  and  self-renunciation,  is  made 
ridiculous  by  Alibech.  Ser  Ciapelletto  casts 
contempt  upon  the  canonisation  of  saints. 
The  confessional,  the  adoration  of  reliques, 
the  priesthood,  the  monastic  orders,  are 
derided  with  the  deadliest  persiflage.  Christ 
himself  is  scoffed  at  in  a  jest  which  points 
the  most  indecent  of  these  tales.  Matrimony 
affords  a  never-ending  theme  for  scorn  ;  and 

90 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

when,  by  way  of  contrast,  the  novelist  paints 
an  ideal  wife,  he  runs  into  such  hyperboles 
that  the  very  patience  of  Griselda  is  a  satire 
on  the  dignity  of  marriage.  It  must  not  be 
thought  that  Boccaccio  was  a  bad  Churchman 
because  he  unsparingly  attacked  the  vices  of 
the  clergy  and  the  superstitions  of  his  age. 
The  contrary  is  amply  proved.  In  those 
times,  when  there  was  no  thought  of  schism 
from  the  Mother  Church  of  Christendom,  a 
man  might  speak  his  mind  out  freely  without 
being  arraigned  for  heresy.  Not  until  the 
Reformation  created  a  panie,  and  pushed 
Rome  to  extremities  in  the  Catholic  reaction, 
was  the  Decameron  "  condemned  to  expur- 
gation  and  placed  upon  the  Index." 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  in  detaii 
the  stories  of  the  Decameron."  The  book 
lies  open  to  English  readers,  who  ought  to 
take  it  as  its  author  meant  it  to  be  taken — 
to  look  upon  it  mainly  as  a  source  of  pleasure 
for  ali  times.  It  would  be  easy  to  fili  many 
learned  pages  with  disquisitions  on  its  potency 

91 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

in  modem  literature,  to  show  how  imaginative 
art  of  every  sort  in  Italy  was  penetrated  with 
its  spirit,  how  Chaucer  felt  its  influence  in 
England,  and  how  a  princess  of  the  House  of 
Valois  reproduced  it  in  the  French  Renaissance. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  such  disquisitions 
impair  the  satisfaction  which  we  have  in  find- 
ing  out  those  obvious  relations  for  ourselves. 
There  is  a  certain  charm  in  exploring  rivulets 
of  literature,  tracing  them  to  their  source  in 
some  large  lake  like  the  "  Decameron,"  noticing 
their  divergence,  detecting  their  specific  quality, 
and  testing  as  a  final  effort  of  analysis  the 
meeting  of  many  old-world  waters  in  the 
reservoir  itself. 


92 


NOTE  ON  THE  PLACE  AND  MANNER 
OF  BOCCACCIO'S  BIRTH 


NOTE  ON  THE   PLACE  AND  MANNER 
OF  BOCCACCIO'S  BIRTH 


E  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  Boccaccio  was 


born  in  13 13.  But  it  is  impossible  to  say  for 
certain  where  he  was  born,  or  whether  he  was  born  in 
wedlock.  Until  recently  his  biographers  accepted  the 
tradition  that  his  father,  whom  we  know  to  have  been 
resident  in  Paris  during  the  year  13 13,  formed  an  attach- 
ment  there  with  a  Frenchwoman,  and  that  Boccaccio 
was  the  fruit  of  their  love.  This  tradition  rests  upon 
the  Italian  version  of  Filippo  Villani's  "  Vite  d'  uomini 
illustri  Fiorentini."  Filippo  Villani,  I  may  observe,  was 
Boccaccio's  contemporary  and  his  successor  in  the  Chair 
founded  at  Florence  for  the  explanation  of  Dante.  He 
continued  his  father  Matteo  Villani's  Chronicle  in  the 
vulgar  tongue,  and  composed  short  biographies  of  several 
eminent  Florentines.  In  this  Life  of  Giovanni  Boccaccio, 
then,  we  read  :  "  His  father  was  Boccaccio  of  Certaldo, 
a  village  of  the  Fiorentine  domain,  and  was  a  man  dis- 
tinguished  by  excellence  of  manners.    The  course  of  his 


95 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

commercial  affairs  brought  him  to  Paris,  where  he  resided 
for  a  season,  and  being  free  and  pleasant  in  the  temper 
of  his  mind,  was  no  less  gay  and  well-inclined  to  love 
by  the  complexion  of  his  constitution.  Thus,  then,  it 
fell  out  that  he  was  inspired  with  love  for  a  girl  of  Paris, 
belonging  to  the  class  between  nobility  and  bourgeoisie, 
for  whom  he  conceived  the  most  violent  passion  ;  and,  as 
the  admirers  of  Giovanni  assert,  she  became  his  wife,  and 
afterwards  the  mother  of  Giovanni"  (p.  29).  Domenico 
of  Arezzo,  also  a  contemporary  of  the  poet,  and  what  is 
more  significant,  a  friend  of  Petrarch,  wrote  a  Latin  life 
of  Boccaccio,  in  which  the  same  story  is  repeated,  with 
this  difference,  that  doubt  is  now  thrown  upon  his  father's 
marriage  to  the  Frenchwoman  :  "  His  father  Boccaccio 
was  a  man  of  intelligence,  and  of  sagacity  in  commerce, 
who,  while  residing  at  Paris  in  the  course  of  business,  fell 
violently  in  love  with  a  girl  of  that  city  ;  and  this  girl,  as 
Giovanni's  admirers  assert,  although  the  other  opinion  is 
more  frequent,  was  afterwards  married  by  him,  and  became 
the  mother  of  Giovanni"  (p.  31).  It  will  be  noticed  that 
both  the  translator  of  Filippo  Villani  and  Domenico  of 
Arezzo  refer  to  admirers  and  friends  of  Boccaccio.  Thus 
stood  the  tradition  of  Boccaccio's  birth  until  the  Latin 
version  of  Filippo  Villani's  biographies  came  to  light. 
Here  we  find:  "He  was  born  at  Certaldo,  from  his 
naturai  father  Boccaccio,  a  man  of  industry."  Tne 
word  naturai  ought,   according  to   classical  usage,  to 

96 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

signify  his  own  as  opposed  to  an  adoptive  parent.  But 
room  is  left  for  doubt  whether  Filippo  Villani  did  not 
imply  that  the  father's  connection  with  the  mother  was 
illicit.  Further  obscurity  is  added  to  the  whole  ques- 
tion  by  a  sonnet,  ascribed  to  Giovanni  Acquettini,  and 
written  to  ali  appearances  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  in  which  Boccaccio  is  made  to  say  :  "  I  was 
bora  at  Florence  at  Pozzo  Toscanelli,  and  now  lie 
buried  in  Certaldo."  This  sonnet,  however,  is  not  very 
trustworthy,  since  it  asserts  that  Boccaccio  received  the 
poet's  crown  in  Rome  from  the  Emperor  Cari  —  an 
honour  of  which  his  biographers  affirm  nothing.  More- 
over,  the  fact  that  Boccaccio's  father  possessed  a  house 
in  S'^  Felicità,  the  Quarter  where  Pozzo  Toscanelli  was 
situated,  proves  little.  Acquettini's  assertion  may  indeed 
bave  been  deduced  merely  from  his  knowledge  of  this 
fact.  It  is  of  more  importance  to  examine  what  can 
be  gathered  directly  from  Boccaccio  himself  upon  these 
topics.  To  begin  with,  we  find  that  he  never  mentioned 
his  mother's  name,  nor  did  he  refer  in  set  terms  to 
his  own  birthplace.  For  signature,  he  commonly  used 
the  forms  "  Joannes  Boccaccius"  and  "Giovanni  da 
Certaldo";  in  his  will  he  describes  himself  as  "Joannes 
olim  Boccaccii  de  Certaldo,"  and  in  the  epitaph  written 
by  him  for  his  tomb  he  spoke  of  "Patria  Certaldum." 
Certaldo  is  noticed  in  his  work  on  mountains,  woods  etc, 
as  the  home  of  his  ancestors  before  they  were  received 

97  G 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

into  the  burghership  of  Florence.  There  is,  in  fact,  no 
doubt,  from  the  general  tenor  of  his  own  writings,  that 
Boccaccio  regarded  himself  as  the  son  of  a  Fiorentine 
citizen,  whose  ancestral  and  paternal  seat  was  the  village 
of  Certaldo.  But  he  says  nothing  directly  whereby  we 
can  determine  the  rank  and  nationality  of  his  mother,  the 
exact  place  where  he  was  bom,  and  the  truth  about  his 
own  legitimacy. 

With  regard  to  this  last  point,  of  legitimacy,  I  see 
slender  reason  to  doubt  it,  and  strong  reasons  for  assum- 
ing  it.  Boccaccio  was  always  treated  as  a  full  Fiorentine 
burgher,  employed  on  embassies,  and  admitted  to  small 
offices  of  public  trust.  He  divided  his  father's  estate  with 
his  surviving  brother,  retaining  the  ancestral  mansion  at 
Certaldo,  which  he  afterwards,  by  his  own  will,  settled 
upon  ali  male  descendants,  whether  legitimate  or  illegiti- 
mate,  of  the  old  Boccaccio.  This,  in  the  absence  of  his 
father's  will,  justifies  an  assumption  that  he  was  regarded 
as  the  eldest  son.  Upon  the  question  of  legitimacy,  it 
must,  however,  be  added,  that  a  deed  for  his  legitimisation 
by  Papal  authority  is  said  to  bave  been  seen  in  the 
seventeenth  century  by  Suares,  Bishop  of  Vaison,  at 
Avignon,  while  Cosimo  della  Rena,  a  writer  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  calls  him  "  Figlio  legittimato."  The 
deed  in  question  was  presumably  intended  to  fìt  him 
for  taking  orders  in  the  Church.  But  this  document, 
though  searched  for,  has  riot  been  brought  to  light  yet  ; 

98 


I 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

and  we  bave  no  sufficient  evidence  to  show  that  he 
ever  availed  himself  of  it.  He  held  no  benefice  ;  and  the 
circumstances  which  bave  been  adduced  to  prove  that  he 
took  orders — the  title  of  Venerabilis  in  bis  will,  and  bis 
bequest  of  a  breviary  and  utensils  for  saying  Mass — are 
too  slender  to  support  an  argument. 

Two  points  bave  stili  to  be  brought  forward.  The  first 
is  that  Boccaccio's  father  was  twice  married,  and  lost 
both  of  his  wives  during  Boccaccio's  lifetime  ;  the  first 
about  1339-40,  the  second  before  1349.  Neither  of  these 
wives  can  be  regarded  as  Boccaccio's  mother.  He  must 
therefore  bave  been  the  son  of  a  third  and  earlier  woman, 
whether  wife  or  mistress,  of  whom  we  know  absolutely 
nothing.  So  far  as  this  goes,  it  adds  some  probability  to 
the  story  of  his  birth  by  the  French  girl  whom  his  father 
loved  in  Paris. 

The  other  point  to  be  considered  is  of  more  importance. 
In  the  "  Ameto,"  which  we  know  to  contain  the  secret  of 
Boccaccio's  love  for  Fiammetta,  he  says  that  Fiammetta's 
parents  were  descended  from  French  ancestors,  that  he 
himself  (named  Galeone  in  the  novel)  was  born  not  far 
from  the  place  whence  Fiammetta's  mother  drew  ber  origin, 
that  in  his  boyhood  he  explored  the  regions  of  Tuscany, 
and  that  in  his  riper  years  he  came  to  Naples.  In 
another  part  of  the  same  hook  the  story  is  related  of  a 
young  Italian  merchant  not  distinguished  by  birth  or 
gentle  breeding,  who  went  to  Paris  and  there  seduced  a 

99 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

young  French  widow.  The  fruit  of  theìr  intercourse  was 
a  boy,  who  received  the  name  of  Ibrida.  Now  it  is  pretty 
certain  that,  in  the  person  of  Galeone,  Boccaccio  is 
speaking  of  himself;  and  this  being  so,  he  has  asserted 
that  his  mother,  like  Fiammetta's  parents,  was  of  French 
blood.  But  there  is  some  dififìculty  in  identifying  him  also 
with  Ibrida,  a  secondary  and  quite  independent  person  in 
the  story.  At  the  same  time,  the  way  in  which  Ibrida's 
history  is  told,  raises  the  suspicion  of  autobigraphical 
intention. 

That  Boccaccio  ought  to  have  refrained  from  exposing 
his  father's  disloyalty  to  his  mother,  is  no  argument  against 
the  attribution  of  Ibrida's  history  to  his  own  life.  Un- 
fortunately,  he  was  on  very  unsatisfactory  terms  with  his 
father  precisely  at  the  time  when  he  composed  "Ameto." 
In  the  last  poem  of  that  romance,  he  describes  Naples 
in  'strains  of  glowing  enthusiasm,  and  then  turns  to  speak 
of  his  own  Tuscan  home.  "  Here  one  laughs  but  seldom. 
The  dark  silent  melancholy  house  keeps  and  holds  me 
much  against  my  will,  where  the  sour  and  horrible  aspect 
of  an  old  man,  frigid,  uncouth,  and  miserly,  continually 
adds  affliction  to  my  saddened  mood."  Again,  in  the 
"  Amorosa  Visione,"  composed  at  the  same  period,  he 
describes  his  father  as  one  employed  perpetually  in 
scratching  tiny  morsels  from  a  huge  mountain  of  gold,  his 
whole  bent  being  set  on  money-making. 

It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to  remark  that  Boccaccio 

ICO 


GIOVANNI  BOCCACCIO 

cannot  bave  wished  the  whole  world  to  know  bis  private 
history,  and  that  any  allusions  to  Fiammetta's  lover  in  the 
"Ameto"  were  possibly  intended  to  mislead  the  public. 
In  effect,  an  early  misunderstanding  of  'tbose  passages 
about  Galeone  and  Ibrida  may  bave  been  the  origin  of 
the  legend  which  we  find  in  the  Italian  version  of  Filippo 
Villani's  life  and  in  Domenico  of  Arezzo's  short  biography. 

The  total  result  of  this  inquiry  to  my  mind  is  that  we 
do  not  know  for  certain  where  Boccaccio  was  born,  that 
bis  mother  has  not  been  identified,  and  that  bis  illegiti- 
macy  is,  to  say  the  least,  not  proven. 


Printed  hy  Ballantyne,  Hanson  &  Co. 
London  Edinburgh 


V 


